The Lets Read Podcast - 150: I MET A MONSTER ON GRINDR! | 23 True Scary Horror Stories | EP 138

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

This episode includes narrations of true creepy encounters submitted by normal folks just like yourself. Today you'll experience horrifying stories about Hinge, Grindr, & Urban Legends... HAVE A STORY TO SUBMIT?► www.Reddit.com/r/LetsReadOfficial FOLLOW ME ON - ►YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/letsreadofficial ► Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/letsread.official/ ► Twitter - https://twitter.com/LetsReadCreepy ♫ Background Music & Audio Remastering: Simon de Beer https://www.instagram.com/simon_db98/ PATREON for EARLY ACCESS!►http://patreon.com/LetsRead

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. The Some said he was in a house fire, that the flames had mellowed his skin like an old candle. Others swore he was struck by lightning as a child, and that the bolt had forked directly into the poor boy's face. There were rumors that he looked the way he did because of some horrifying nuclear accident at the nearby Duquesne power plant. Men swore he was real. Others said that it was all a lie, but back in the day, almost everyone in the greater Pittsburgh area had heard some variation of the Charlie No-Face urban legend. Some called him the Green Man, others the Monster of Beaver County,

but the details were essentially the same. Some older Pennsylvanians even claimed to have met Charlie No-Face when they were younger, saying it was by far the single most terrifying moment of their lives. They describe it like shaking hands with a Jersey Devil or sharing a makeup mirror with a pouting Bloody Mary. You thought it was impossible, but there it is, clear as day, real as you and me. Because Charlie No-Face really was real, and his story is just about as terrifying and tragic as a person can imagine. On August 16th of 1919, an 8-year-old boy named Ray Robinson was taking a walk with his sister and a few other friends out near Newcastle, Pennsylvania. At some point, the children looked up to see a rather fetching bird's nest perched atop a nearby tree. Only this

tree happened to be dangerously close to an abandoned railway bridge. It's thought that the children were engaged in an activity known as egging, in which children would cruelly steal bird's eggs in order to preserve, paint, or display them. But what Ray didn't know was that just a year earlier another boy had tried to climb the exact same tree and had managed to touch one of the exposed wires that still had a current running through it. The boy died a slow, painful death over the course of two weeks and Ray was about to make exactly the same near fatal mistake.

A horrifying amount of electrical current ran through his young body, so much so that his eyes, lips, nose, and ears were all hideously malformed or burned away completely. One of his arms was frazzled and rendered useless by the subsequent fall, while one of his hands was blown clean off of his wrist by the force of the electrical current. He went through an ungodly amount of pain and suffering, but with the hard work of some top local doctors, little Ray Robinson miraculously survived. As you can imagine, Ray's life became extremely difficult after the accident and not just because of his injuries. Many of the larger Victorian-era homes in rural Pennsylvania, including the one Ray grew up in, really can be something to behold. The extravagant architecture

includes high ceilings, grand bay windows, and often the privacy of personal en-suite bathroom fixtures. In some cases, the level of domestic self-sufficiency meant that a person could remain in one isolated corner of a house for days, perhaps even weeks on end. As just as much as it could be used to provide a sense of comfortable solitude, such features made for rather horrible gilded cages for people like Ray. And this is how his family kept his monstrous form hidden away from the terrified public. By all accounts, Ray was kept isolated and sh form hidden away from the terrified public. By all accounts, Ray was kept isolated and shunned even by his own family. But he wasn't entirely mistreated during his upbringing. He was amply fed and his love of baseball was indulged by parents that provided him with both baseball cards and a wireless radio with which he could listen to games. His parents also understood that he

needed to keep busy, and also that they needed to teach him to function in society. They provided him with the means to learn braille and even taught him how to fashion wallets and doormats out of used rubber tires. When he came of age, his family revealed a renovated apartment they'd made for him, set into the family garage. It was much closer to them, both physically and emotionally, and it meant the world to a young man who'd been so terribly misunderstood for most of his young life. Only as he grew, a yearning to roam free burned in him. So in a small act of rebellion, Ray slipped out of the house in the dead of night and walked the highway near the family home. It became something of a habit. He enjoyed the feeling of the tarmac underfoot,

the feeling of the breeze on his skin. After a while, he went from walking the highways once or twice a week to almost every night, always alone and always at night. And this is where the real-life Ray Robinson became a walking, talking urban legend. Most nights on the rare occasion that a car did come along, Ray was so frightened by the sound of the oncoming engine that he'd scamper off the road and hide among the foliage. But after a while, we found he was unafraid of the roaring vehicles. If he stuck to the side of the road, they didn't seem to bother him. So he made the decision to stop hiding. One day, Ray was walking along the highway when once again he heard the sound of an oncoming car. Yet unlike so many times before, when the vehicle had just rolled on by, having not caught him in

its headlights, Ray heard the screech of tires on the, having not caught him in its headlights, Ray heard the screech of tires on the road behind him. A man cried out into the night, revving his engine in a way that sounded a lot like reversing. Ray spooked, bolted off the road and into the cover of some trees. Ray swore off his nightly walks for a while, but the damage was done, and in nearby Elwood City, rumors began to spread of a man with no face. The first sighting didn't cause too much of a stir. People just thought the storyteller was tired, crazy, or drunk. But after a few months, a second sighting of an obviously restless Ray Robinson caused something of a frenzy among the local townsfolk. People would scour the length of Route 351 once the sun had set,

desperate to confirm the rumors of Charlie No-Face for themselves. But one by one, the people of Elwood found the rumors were all true. As one might expect, Ray's rather unusual appearance was the subject of equal parts fascination and revulsion. But for the most part, those that encountered him were not without compassion. People began to offer him cigarettes or beer, two amenities he'd never had the fortune or misfortune to have partaken in, and like many of us, he found that he enjoyed them. It also seems that he was partial to having his picture taken,

as there are many confirmed photographs of Ray with smiling locals, arms around his shoulders as if he were a beloved celebrity. Again, rumors spread that Charlie No-Face liked beers and smokes, and the town folks would bring tributes to Ray on a nearly nightly basis. This only further incentivized his nightly rambles down Route 351, but not everyone who sought him out had good intentions. According to some Elwood residents, Ray was attacked and beaten up on more than one occasion.

One person even tells the story of how one particular cruel character filled a bottle of beer up with his own urine, chilled it, then gave it to the blind wanderer on one of his moonlight jaunts. Some would stop him, offer to give him a ride, then simply drive in the middle of nowhere and kick him out of the car. Shocking, but not surprising as anyone even remotely familiar with humanity might be quick to remind you. One older Elwood resident tells the story of driving down Wallace Run Road late at night with his friends. They had brought with them a case of beer, a straw and some cigarettes, and their usual tribute to the green man.

Although his friends had seen Charlie No-Face before, our narrator had yet to have the pleasure, and when Ray Robinson finally presented himself in the flesh, right in the seat next to him, the man said he was frozen in terror. Everything they said about him was true, and his face really was green. But as it turns out, there's a rather grim reasoning behind this discoloration, as Ray's nose was basically an open wound for his entire adult life, and as a result, he often suffered from some quite dangerous infections, thus turning his face a slightly verdant hue. People need to understand, the resident was quoted as saying, this was a human being, a real person, and someone who endured one of the most tragic

lives I've ever encountered. Underneath it all was this beautiful, kind man. Somewhere, there exists a photograph of Ray Robinson posing with a woman. It's clear that she's happy, that she's unafraid of him, and the way she holds him speaks to the warmth she has for a man she may never, ever have met before. All based on a well-deserved reputation of being a kind and gentle spirit who wouldn't let a life-changing accident keep him down. There also exists an interview with a man whose brother was killed in action during the Vietnam War. By his own admission, his fascination with Charlie No-Face was a rather eccentric one, but he also credits Ray Robinson

with helping through the darkest period of grief he'd suffered so far. Ray wasn't just an urban legend, he was a real flesh and blood man, and a good one at that. Ray was living in an assisted living facility when he passed away in 1981. His grave is in the Grandview Cemetery, located at 139 Norwood Drive in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. And coincidentally, it's just a few plots away from the little boy electrocuted in the exact same manner, just a year before his own accident. Occasionally, someone comes along to put fresh flowers down in Ray's grave. It's not clear whether this is one person or many, but the message is clear. Ray's legacy lives on, be it in the terrifying tales of the man with no face,

or in the love that those who came to know him show. So here's to Ray Robinson, the urban legend who turned out to be very, very real, and who deserves to rest in the deepest and most heavenly peace. The man born as Frank Ruchon would eventually go by Andre Rand during his adult life, but the name on his driver's license has become somewhat irrelevant, as his terrifying exploits would be attached to a deceptively playful nickname. Born in New York City on March 11th of 1944, Rand would spend most of his life around Staten Island, going on to be one of the most infamous criminals that the Northeast has ever known. And although Rand definitively

wasn't the most prolific serial killer, it's more the nature of his crimes that made him so universally reviled. You see, Andre Rand's prey of choice was children. Thankfully, Andre Rand is currently serving several consecutive 25 years to life sentences. But the convicted kidnapper and suspected child serial killer managed to wreak enough havoc and inflict enough pain in his time that his capture and imprisonment provides very little solace. Yet bizarrely, the man's morbidly fascinating tale began as a real-world campfire story. In days gone by, young people all over the borough of Staten Island would scare the living daylights out of each other with descriptions of the monstrous figure

known only as Cropsey. Supposedly a sort of boogeyman figure, with a razor-sharp steel hook for a hand, Cropsey would apparently drag innocent children from their homes in the middle of the night before carrying them to an abandoned hospital. There, depending on who was telling the story, you would be tortured, killed, eaten, or any combination of the three. Although creepy campfire and urban legends are a standard, A thrilling part of most everyone's early childhood, for the children of Staten Island, these ominous little tales soon became disquietingly real. The line between fact and fiction began to blur as local children began to vanish in real life, but when their cold, dead bodies were found, it made it clear that this was no mere campfire tale. Could it be that Cropsey was real?

During the 1960s, Andre Rand was employed as a custodian at the Willowbrook State School. Funded by state government, the Willowbrook was a charitable center that provided aid for children with disabilities. On the surface, all of the Willowbrooks' practices were good and proper. But upon closer inspection, state officials began to unravel a web of questionable conditions and unethical medical practices. On the advice of the inspectors, the Willowbrook was immediately closed and Andre Rand was forced to find alternative employment. Rand had a clean slate. He could have pursued just about any manner of unskilled labor, but instead, he chose to pursue an even more horrifying career. Between the date of the Willowbrooks closing in the early 1970s, several young girls went missing in the area surrounding the abandoned hospital. The first was a five-year-old Alice Piera.

On July 10th, 1972, the happy-go-lucky toddler seemed to simply vanish into thin air while playing in the street just outside her house, a street located just a few miles southeast of the old Wilbrook Hospital. For a while, the whereabouts of the small child remained a complete mystery. Yet there was something else the local townsfolk were unaware of, that Andre Rann once went by Frank Ruchon. And Frank Ruchon had once served ten months in prison for the abduction of several small children. The fact he only did ten months stems from the fact that his defense attorney managed to essentially haggle a judge down to a conviction of false imprisonment,

a crime with a considerably lower penalty than kidnap or abduction. But the conviction was enough to smear Frank's name for good, and so he came up with a rather simple and cunning solution. He changed it, and after moving out to Staten Island, became Andre Rand. Yet as much as Rand could hide his identity from the townsfolk, he couldn't hide his identity from police officers, who were well aware of his legal change of name. So when little Alice Pereira went missing on that warm July evening, the police considered Rand to be the prime suspect Despite their convictions, evidence was flimsy and not nearly enough to gain a solid conviction in a court of law And so, as the cops chose to hold their horses, the bodies began to pile up On July 15th, 1981, 7-year-old Holly Ann Hughes went missing.

Her parents filed a missing persons report, while several witnesses claimed to have seen the girl with Rand shortly before her disappearance. Once again, no actual evidence led to no actual arrest. Two years later, Rand once again became the prime suspect when 11-year-old Tyheese Jackson disappeared. Then in 1984, 21-year-old Hank Gaffario vanished. These unnerving incidents left the nearby townsfolk wracked with terror, a terror that was exacerbated by the fact that not a single person was apprehended, with all of the loss for a potential motive. It was a whopping three years before local law enforcement finally caught a break in their investigation when 12-year-old girl Jennifer Swagger was reported missing on July 9th of 1987.

The search for her, or her body, lasted 35 days and ended in the traumatic unearthing of her body in a wooded area on Staten Island. According to the New York Times, Swagger was found dead in a shallow grave on the former property of the Willowbrook State School. By the time Jenny Swagger's body was found, police decided they had to act and Andre Rann was arrested and charged as a suspect in the murder. Once again, prosecutors fell afoul of court procedure and found they were unable to convict Rand on the murder charge, with there only being enough evidence to irrefutably convict him of kidnapping. This was 1988. Prosecutors had Rand exactly where they wanted him, in a federal penitentiary, where he'd stew while they worked on convicting him of the other child murders.

Although there wasn't enough evidence at the time, Rand was found guilty of Holly Ann Hughes' kidnapping in 2004, over two decades after she originally went missing. And since there is no statute of limitations for New York for first-degree kidnapping, prosecutors ensure that Rand wouldn't escape justice for his historic depravities. He was given an additional 25 years to life sentence on top of the one he was already serving. All in all, the Staten Island boogeyman sits behind bars to this day for the kidnappings of Holly Ann Hughes and Jennifer Swagger, and won't be eligible for parole until 2037, provided he lives that long. He'll be 93 years old on the day he walks free. Andre Rann's disturbing life and legacy were dissected in the 2019 documentary movie

Cropsey. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival that year and won the Grand Jury Prize for its enthralling narrative and slick production quality, and on watching it, it's easy to see why. The essential premise of the movie was to explore whether or the Staten Island urban legend of Cropsey was actually tied into Rand's murderous career, whether one had fed into the other until fact and fiction had become indistinguishable. Yet as the movie came to show, for some of the people who experienced those years on Staten Island, as well as those involved in searching for the missing kids, the term boogeyman didn't even broach Rand's despicable psychopathy. Donna Cotugno, president of the charity Friends of the Jennifer

for Missing Children, calls Anne the Hannibal Lecter of Staten Island. Donna and her fellow volunteers have the unenviable task of searching Oliver Willowbrook's 385 acres twice a year in search of any undiscovered remains. He terrified a whole community, and he still haunts us, Donna was quoted as saying. For some kids, it's like if Corpsey was real, what else aren't they telling us, you know? And I don't know, sometimes I feel a little of that too. At the end, Andre Rand was arrested, imprisoned, and may never see the light of day again. But nevertheless, his impact on the Staten Island community is immeasurable, and Cropsey has left behind massive psychological trauma that may well last for generations.

Some of those children are still missing, the remains are still out there, somewhere. And as the years go by, and their bones are pulled one by one from the cold earth entombing them, the memories of Rand's reign of terror will come back flooding, over and over again. And maybe that's what makes the Cropsey story so well and truly terrifying. The core lesson in the story, the frightful foundation of its message, is that the boogeyman is real, and he wears the faces of men. The Bloody Mary Urban Legend The idea that if you look into a mirror and say her name a certain number of times,

a malevolent phantom known as Bloody Mary will materialize to murder you. Some might say that the movie series The Candyman borrowed the concept, having the protagonist stare into a mirror while repeating the titular character's name as a means to summon him. It's certainly a terrifying trope, the idea of staring into a mirror only for someone or something to suddenly appear behind you. It's enough to make even the bravest of us shiver. But no one's ever just appeared out of someone's mirror to murder them, right? Those of you who wish to remain in blissful ignorance, I implore you, stop listening right now. But for the rest of you, who don't mind being a little paranoid for the next couple of days,

let me introduce you to the story of Ruthie Mae McCoy At around 8.45 on April 22nd of 1987, Ruthie Mae McCoy made a 911 call from her 11th floor AVA department on West 13th Street, Chicago. After the police dispatcher asked Ruthie what manner of assistance she required, he found her response to be incredibly perplexing. In effect, Ruthie told them that someone was trying to get into her home via the bathroom cabinet. They want to break in, he asked. From where? They want to come through my bathroom, Ruthie replied. I'm on the other side. They're trying to reach in through my bathroom cabinet. The dispatcher had already established that Ruthie was on the 11th floor of a 13th street high-rise. There was no way anyone was climbing through her bathroom window, and absolutely no way of them using her bathroom cabinet as some kind of doorway.

The dispatcher was most certainly concerned for Ruthie's safety, but it seemed to them that the biggest threat to her well-being was herself. She sounded frightened, that much was certain, but if she truly believed that people were trying to break into her apartment through her bathroom cabinet, she must have been having some kind of mental breakdown. The dispatcher told Ruthie that the cops were on their way, but he logged the call as a disturbance with a neighbor as opposed to an assault in progress. It wasn't a high priority call, but the cops would get there eventually to check up on her. The cops finally arrived at Ruthie's apartment. They knocked on the door, but received no reply.

After their knocks went unanswered, the police attempted to enter the apartment using a key given to them by an attendant in the housing office, but left when the key failed to unlock the door. The next evening, Chicago PD received a call from one of Ruthie's neighbors who was worried about her whereabouts, considering she had seen police at her door the night before and still had not seen Ruthie. Chicago police and Chicago Housing Authority security guards arrived back at McCoy's apartment shortly afterward, and after the knocks and calls for McCoy went unanswered, officers suggested breaking the door down, but unbelievably, were prevented from doing so by the

CHA security guards who told them they'd sue the city for damages if they got fired from their jobs. The following evening, pressures from the cops forced the Chicago Housing Authority to act, and they sent over a representative with a carpenter, who drilled the lock on the door. It was then that they made a horrifying discovery, the dead, decaying body of Ruthie Mae McCoy. Homicide detectives discovered that she had been shot in her left shoulder, left thigh, the right side of her abdomen, and right upper arm. It also became obvious that whoever had shot Ruthie Mae was known to her, and was able to gain access to her apartment without breaking and entering.

Yet they discovered that Ruthie had locked her door from the inside and the key was still on its hook near the threshold. So how had they gotten in and out of the apartment? Detectives reviewed the 911 call Ruthie made on the night of her death. When she mentioned her killers trying to get in through the bathroom cabinet, a deep chill fell over the two men. It was impossible, like something out of a horror movie. But there had to be a rational explanation for what Ruthie was saying, as she was obviously not imagining anyone in her mirror. Detectives returned to the scene of the crime,

intent on fully analyzing this bathroom cabinet that Ruth had mentioned. To the naked eye, it appeared to be a regular bathroom cabinet. Mirror door, sterile white insides dotted with cosmetics and medicines. There were no secret doors inside of it, and there were certainly no supernatural portals to hellish otherworldly realms. In a show of mild frustration, one of the detectives either shook or struck the cabinet, only for each of them to notice something curious about it. It visibly shifted.

We can imagine the moment. One detective silently looking at the other with surprise, before returning to shift the cabinet again. Before long, they discovered they could do more than just shift the thing, they could remove it entirely, revealing a gaping hole in the wall. As it turned out, the ABLA projects which Ruthie called home had a rather unusual architectural quirk built into it, in that certain apartments connected to one another via a narrow tunnel that ran behind the bathroom cabinets of opposite apartments. This design was intended to provide easy access to plumbing fixtures if maintenance was ever needed, and

in some cases, apartments above and below each other were also connected by similar means. Granted, this made tradesmen's lives much easier, but also provided easier access for burglars and also nefarious types, as the bathroom medicine cabinets were easily removable from each end. A person could simply remove the cabinet from the wall of the apartment they were in, crawl through the narrow passage known as a pipe chase, and push in the cabinet of the unit they were trying to access. Break-ins via this method have been going on in the ABLA projects for quite a while by the time of Ruthie's murder, to the extent where residents would put furniture in front of the bathroom doors or

tie them with a rope before going to bed. It was obviously a huge problem, but one that was completely overlooked in the construction of the housing projects. Until the Chicago Housing Authority could find the money to fix it, residents were told to simply make do Ruthie's apartment, number 1109, happened to be connected to number 1108 And this is obviously where her killers emerged from Number 1108 was indeed being rented at the time And it's believed that the tenant on record was actually a drug dealer Who allowed his customers to use record was actually a drug dealer who allowed his

customers to use the apartment as a drug den. These shady drug using types must have either entered or heard about the flaw in the architecture and decided to use it to their advantage. Two ALBA residents, Ted Turner, then aged 18, and 21-year-old named John Honduras, were charged with murder, home invasion, armed robbery, armed violence, and residential burglary. The number of witnesses claimed they saw the two men carrying McCoy's 19-inch color TV and rocking chair around the projects in the hours following Ruthie's murder. After years of arrests and continual investigation, the charges against the two men were dropped due to lack of investigation, and the Ruthie's killers were never officially charged or imprisoned. Even without the supernatural element, the idea of someone being able to violently break

into your apartment via what amounts to a secret passage is absolutely terrifying. Very few of us have ever seen the blueprints to the apartment buildings or houses that we live in, and even fewer are actually interested in doing so. And so how do you know for certain that there isn't some kind of secret entrance to your apartment? And if there is, how do you know there isn't someone sneaking along it right this instant, ready to jump out on some poor unsuspecting scary story fan to give them their own personal horror story? We'll be right back. You can get it from our tread experts. Toyo's open country family of tires will get you through tough weather in a variety of terrains. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Find a Toyo tread experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there at treadexperts.ca. As we all know, sewers are dark, dangerous, and scary places.

The fictional home of supervillains, evil clowns, and post-pubescent reptiles trained in jiu-jitsu, there's obviously a lot of nasty, gross, and hazardous stuff down there. Rats, used tampons, toilet paper, sewage, you name it. If you flush it, it's down there. But what about the infamous colonies of alligators that are so prevalent among urban legends? It's certainly a claim that's been around for decades, and you've probably heard some version of a tale that kicked off the urban legend. Supposedly, a spoiled young boy gets a baby alligator, of all things, for his birthday and flushes it down the toilet when he's bored of playing with it. Years later, as the story goes, the same boy reaches into a sewer

grate for a lost baseball, and his arm is ripped off by a former pet, now monstrous and ravenous for blood. Some versions go even further to suggest that after the alligator was disposed of at such a young age, it would live the majority of its life in an environment not exposed to sunlight, and thus it would apparently in time lose its eyesight and the pigment in its hide, and that the reptile would grow to be blind and completely albino, pure white in color with red or pink eyes. Another reason why an albino alligator would retreat to an underground sewer is because of its vulnerability to the sun and the wild. As there is no dark pigment in the creature's skin, it has no protection from the sun which

makes it very hard for it to survive in the wild. Some people even spoke of mutant alligators living in the sewers which have been exposed to many different types of toxic chemical waste which altered them, making them deformed and sometimes even larger and with strange coloring. The story is widely known and has appeared in many forms including TV shows and horror films. Indeed, queries about the sewer gator rumors regularly arrive at the offices of the New York City Bureau of Sewers and are routinely denied. One source for the story is the 1959 book titled The World Beneath the City, which included an interview with the New Yorker claiming to have been sewer commissioner in the 1930s when a

campaign was mounted to clean all the gators out of the sewer system. This seemed like solid evidence that even if alligators no longer lurk in the city's sewers, they did it at one point and were enough of a menace that the city initiated a program to eradicate them. However, further investigation revealed that the man had never been commissioner and in fact had delighted in spinning outrageous yarns. Trumping all myths, however, is the fact that alligators wouldn't survive long in the sewers. In a 1982 interview with the New York Times, sewer bureau spokesman John F. T. Flattery said,

I could cite you many cogent, logical reasons why the sewer system is not a fit habitat for an alligator, but suffice it to say, in the 28 years I have been in the sewer system is not a fit habitat for an alligator, but suffice it to say, in the 28 years I have been in the sewer game, neither I nor any of the thousands of men who have worked to build, maintain, or repair the sewer system have ever seen one, and a 10 foot 800 pound alligator would be hard to miss. Still, New York City is a big place and known for its strangeness. Some people have exotic pets and it's possible that there are one or more doomed miserable baby alligators somewhere. But finding or putting an alligator in a New York City sewer does not mean that decades of stories about giant alligators in the sewers are true. Until, that is, you come across one particular account from 2010. An alligator? A crocodile? We were stumped. But it was definitely,

well, quite a reptilian reptile, said New Yorker Joyce Hackett. As I threaded my way back to my home in Manhattan through the side streets of Queens, I noticed a crowd of about 30 people gathered around the Old Navy Datsun. I rolled down my windows and asked the lady couple what was going on. Alligator, she said, as if the overriding issue here was that she should have already been on her break. I squatted down, and there it was on the wet asphalt, crouching motionless. Not an eight inch baby alligator, this is more like two feet. But honestly, he seemed less like a menacing predator and more like an abandoned pet cowering under a car.

Like many of us, Joyce was more than familiar with the whole alligator in the sewers trope, but never for a second did she believe it to be true. Yet when faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, even when she was forced to relent. Storm drains and gutters all over the neighborhood were flooded from the downpour, Joyce mused. Maybe a wave had washed this creature onto the pavement of civilization, separating from its pack. When asked if she was actually shocked or scared by the gator sighting, Joyce could only answer, kind of, because New York is a city where one expects the unexpected. A city where alien creatures take root and whose gutters, basements, archives, and streams

serve up more stories than all its writers can think up. I mean, it's a city that writes itself. Each year, at least half a dozen people ask New York City's Bureau of Sewers about those infamous gators. John T. Flattery, Chief of Design, answers those queries routinely. I could cite you many cogent, logical reasons why the sewer system is not a fit habitat for an alligator, but suffice it to say, in the 28 years I have been in the sewer game, neither I, nor any of the thousands of men who have worked to build,

maintain, or repair the sewer system have ever seen one. Flattery, whose sense of humor is of the dried yet deadly variety, added the one clear proof of the absence of alligators. Not a single union official has ever advanced alligator infestation as a reason for a pay increase for sewer workers. Even though it's next to impossible to prove something didn't happen, I would still suggest from the lack of credibility sightings it's safe to assume that there are no alligators down there, he said. Yet despite what flattery says, from the years 1927 to 1982, there have been 13 separate reports from people having sighted

alligators in and around NYC's sewer system. The two-foot baby alligator was caught in 2010 by the NYPD in the sewers in Queens, and it was most definitely from the sewers. But it's unlikely it was down there for long, as John Flattery is totally correct in his opinion that gators simply couldn't survive down there for any extended period of time due to the frigid winter weather. However, once the cold isn't a problem anymore, alligators actually flourish in certain sewer systems and have been sighted in the drains and sewers of Florida as recently as 2017, due to many of those waste outlets backing out into the swamps. During storm surges and the colder winter months,

Florida alligators sometimes shelter in convenient drains and hunt for rats to supplement their diet. So despite all the naysayers insisting it's impossible, there is irrefutable evidence that alligators can live in American sewer systems, and although it's clear that they can't live down there for long, the queen sewer gator sighting is undeniably true. So maybe be a little careful next time you're around a storm drain during heavy rain, because it's not just Pennywise that'll grab you by the arm before tearing it off and you just might in to relieve yourself. A kind of serenity comes over you, as a time of privacy, of solace and seclusion.

The more uncouth among us might even describe the feeling of voiding their bowels as blissful, and as disgustingly satisfying as a good dump might be, sitting on the toilet with our pants around our ankles is without a doubt one of the most vulnerable positions in which a person could possibly find themselves. And for some, that vulnerability might have become frighteningly apparent to us at some point. It seems impossible, sure, but what if? What if? Something could swim up the sewage pipes, slowly snaking or scuttling through the filthy toilet water, only to surface right when we're at our most exposed. Perhaps a rat, wiggling its fleshly pink tail, surfacing with a squeak and then launching itself teeth first at our backsides. Or a snake, winding its way up the pipes before sinking its fangs into

you know what. Maybe even an alligator, floating in the toilet, just waiting for us to come along and lift the lid so it can rip off an appendage or two. Most of us had a similar kind of irrational thought whilst sitting on the toilet. But rats, snakes, or gators can't really swim up our bathroom pipes, right? I mean, that's got to be just an urban legend. Well, I hate to break it to you, friends, but it's true. And rats have been crawling up sewer pipes and into people's toilets with horrifying frequency, and just for about as long as sewage systems have existed.

Magnolia is the second largest neighborhood of Seattle, occupying a hilly peninsula northwest of the downtown area. It was named by Captain George Davidson of the US Coast Survey in 1856, who reportedly mistook the plentiful mandrona trees for magnolias, and given the early date of its founding, some sections of Magnolia have a very archaic sewer system. Although made of much heavier metals, some might argue that the older sewage pipes are just as strong as the modern polymer variety. The only problem is that they're quite a bit different. And being larger has its drawbacks, as one unfortunate resident discovered to their abject horror.

One evening, they obviously approached their toilet intending on relieving themselves before bed But when they lifted the lid, the sight that greeted them made their blood run cold Staring back at them, with cold, beady eyes and gnashing yellow teeth, was a huge, soaking wet sewer rat The scream it must have elicited from the unsuspecting homeowner must have been enough to wake the dead, as the squealing beast leapt from the toilet bowl in an attempt to escape it. The rat seemed to couple its escape with a lunging attack, and was successful in making the homeowner back off enough for it to be able to make a clean break from the bathroom. The homeowner was left stunned and horrified,

weeping on the bathroom floor in the aftermath of such a terrible surprise. I now feel utterly unsafe in my own home, the homeowner said, in a letter to the King County Public Health Department. Local media outlets reached out to a man named Don Pace, a rodent control specialist for King County's public health department. It's a life-changing experience if it happens to you, he said, admitting that the incidents are much more common than we're led to believe. It does freak you out because you're not expecting it. In King County alone, there have been over 400 reported incidents of sewer rats

simply materializing in people's toilets over the past 10 years or so, with Pace saying that his department deals with between 50 to 80 toilet rat scenarios a year. Notorious as spreaders of the infamous Black Death, rats are one of the most reviled and ubiquitous urban wildlife nuisances, and it certainly doesn't do their reputations any good when they invade the privacy of people's bathrooms. Pace has been helping people vanquish toilet rats for more than 20 years in King County, and the occurrences of toilet rats are now so regular in certain parts of the northwestern United States that Dawn has set up a webpage to help people deal with the problem. We try to tell people not to panic. All you have to

do is close the lid and flush. The rat will try to swim back down or get tired and drown, Pace said. It might take more than one flesh to exile the furry intruders. Typically, Norway rats are about 6 to 8 inches long, 12 inches if you include their tails. So, they don't go down easy, let me tell you. Sometimes I feel like a superhero because everyone's so happy when they see me, he said. Usually, he continued, the story goes something like this. A person hears a splashing noise at 1.30am in the toilet. They look in to see a rat doing laps. Yet, within five minutes it disappeared. There's water everywhere and there's no sign of any obvious entry.

It seems impossible, but it happens a lot and there's very little we can do about it other than deal with the incidents as and when they arise. Some of the public complaints to the King County Public Health Department are available to read online. One stated that I have the unfortunate duty to report that I found a rat in my toilet bowl this evening, on July 1st, 2013. It is quite alive and unhappy to be where it is. I'll try using dish soap and flushing. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll look for heavy leather gloves and see if I can remove it that way. Wife heard scrabbling noises in toilet. Another complaint read. Lifted lid and saw rat. She

screamed. Flushed three times and rat disappeared. Then squirted dish soap down toilet and flushed twice more. Then poured bleach down kitchen sink, followed by boiling water. Don Pace has said he approves of the dish soap method mentioned above. The soap breaks the surface tension in the toilet bowl and makes it difficult for the rat to swim. But the measures don't stop there. If someone reports a toilet rat to the county, Pace will typically drop poisoned bait into a nearby manhole cover to address any other rats who might be considering invasion. It's probably best to avoid drawing rats in the first place, Don was quoted as saying. Rats are typically chasing food poured down the drain,

but detour to porcelain because they can't access the sink. They come up where they find easiest access, the toilet bowl. Every house has a kitchen sink, so every house has an entry point for rats. It happens throughout Seattle, from the far south end all the way up to the north end. Don recommends cleaning your drains regularly, preferably using a cup of baking soda, a cup of vinegar, along with a healthy dose of boiling water. It's particularly important to do this in the summer and fall, since this is naturally when the rats will be most active. But that being said, incidents are still rare overall and the more modern your drains are, the less likely occurrences of toilet rats actually are. So rest assured people, the chances of actually finding a rat sitting in a toilet bowl are relatively low. But I'm sorry to say, it does occur. So maybe it's best we all start leaving our toilet lids

down to keep the sewer rats out, but if you do, remember that every single time you lift the lid, you're rolling the dice on being ambushed by a huge, angry vermin. Ironically, one of the most horrifying true urban legends is perhaps one of the least known, at least in the US anyway. Because up in Toronto, Canada, almost everyone has heard the story of the Leaping Lawyer. According to the story, one well-to-do lawyer was overly keen on showing off all the features of his extravagant office space. Set into a huge glass skyscraper, the firm who made the huge plate glass windows of the office boast that their windows were unbreakable, and that it would take a shot from an artillery gun to successfully shatter them. Apparently, this well-to-do lawyer was a fan of proving them right, and had a rather terrifying office party trick that he often used to wow his guests. Right when the party was in full swing, he would take a running jump at the plate glass windows after announcing,

goodbye cruel world. Those in attendance would scream in horror as the lawyer leapt towards the window, only to be met with his hysterical laughter when he harmlessly bounced off the toughened polished glass. Over and over the lawyer repeated his death-defying stunt, until one day the unthinkable happened, and the unbreakable broke. The lawyer reeled up, ran at the glass, thrilled by the accompanying screams of the uninitiated. But as his large, speeding body came in contact with the glass, it shattered. Instead of turning around to laugh at those who had fallen for the prank, the lawyer was only met with the sound of his own screams as he plummeted twenty stories down to his death. It's an urban legend that has everything. The impossible is

possible, the arrogant are punished, and it's about as theatrical as urban legends get. Yet perhaps the real horror only comes when we learn that the entire story is completely and utterly true. After completing an engineering degree before attending law school, Gary Hoy took a job practicing corporate and securities law in the eastern Canadian city of Toronto. He worked for a firm known as Holden Day Wilson, a law firm located on the 24th floor of the Toronto Dominion Centre. Then on July 9th, 1993, Hoy happened to notice someone giving a tour of the office to a group of articling students from a nearby university. Like he had done many times before, he attempted to demonstrate the strength of the structure's window glass by slamming itself into a window. So, in order to give the students a good fright, Hoy took his usual run-up and slammed into the plate glass.

This is where the urban legend differs from the true story, as it turns out the glass was indeed unbreakable, and remained unshattered even on the day of Hoy's death. Instead, some rusty old screws, tired of Hoy's continual abuses, simply dislodged and allowed the window pane to slip out of place. Right there, in front of the completely unsuspecting students, Gary Hoy screamed as he slipped through the gap in the floor and the window, plummeting 24 stories to his death. The building's structural engineer, Bob Greer, was contacted by the Toronto Star for comment. When he learned of Hoy's folly, he was quoted as saying, I don't know of a single building code in the entire world that would allow a 160-pound man to run up against a window like that. He must have been out of his freaking mind.

In another interview, the glass company who made the panes was quick to state that the windows didn't actually break. We just want to make that clear. It popped out of its frame. That's what caused Mr. Hoy to fall. Shoddy workmanship, not our product. Holden Day Wilson never recovered from Hoy's death, and it was definitely one of the factors that contributed to the firm's eventual closure less than three years later. At the time, it was the largest law firm closure in Canadian history, but national newspapers seemed to forget that Hoy's death even occurred. The firm's closure was blamed

on mismanagement and financial discrepancies, and the fact that Gary's ghost had haunted all those that had witnessed his death was totally ignored. Maybe that's because the story became so frequently mentioned in fictional media, referenced so heavily on TV and in film, that people just assured it was the fabrication of some overly imaginative writer. And we can understand why. The tale is truly a horrifying one, something we'd rather tell ourselves didn't happen rather than facing the bone-chilling truth that a man really did end up taking his own life, all because of a dumb prank. Perhaps you've heard of the urban legend sometimes known as the dead body under the bed. Legend tells of a vacationing couple that checks into a seedy roadside motel only to discover a foul smell in their room.

Come night, they find the smell to be so odorous that they're unable to sleep and decide to call a member of staff to complain. The staff member then discovers that the smell is in fact coming from the bed, and looks under the frame to find the couple had been sleeping on top of the rotting body of a young girl that had been stuffed into the box. It's definitely one of the lesser known urban legends, but it's one made all the more terrifying by the fact that it's actually a true story. Not only that, but there have been multiple occurrences of people sleeping in rooms where dead bodies have been concealed,

and two of those unfortunate souls were James and Rhonda Sargent. The couple had been on the road for hours before they checked into room 222 of the Budget Lodge Inn on Brooks Road in Memphis, Tennessee. That evening, the couple said they complained to the motel staff that the room was stanky and foul. They burned some incense they picked up from a nearby hippie hole, but it seemed like nothing could cover the revolting odor. Though it seemed that someone had apparently tried before because the sergeants noticed there were fabric softener sheets stuffed into ceiling tiles and nooks and the smell was strongest whenever anyone sat on the bed. It was perhaps

the worst night's sleep of their entire lives and in the morning, the couple left the motel, determined to never darken its doors again. Sometime later, the smell had attracted some negative attention that the motel owners finally decided to call the police. More than one guest had commented that it smells like a dead body in there, in room 222, and they weren't wrong. Homicide detectives instantly recognized the smell as belonging to a corpse, and after turning the room upside down, located the moldering cadaver of 28-year-old mother of four, Sonny Millbrook. Throughout the course of the police investigation that followed, it was discovered that Sonny had checked into the budget inn sometime in January

of 2010. She was staying with her boyfriend and father of four of her children, Lakeith Moody, and the room was in his name. Millbrook had been there for a couple of weeks when one day in late January, she did not pick up her kids from daycare. Her sister, Linda James, reported her missing. Police believe she died the day she vanished, but were told by motel workers that they had bagged up Millbrook's personal belongings and cleaned the room. Other workers said nothing appeared amiss and the room was rented out. If Suni had indeed been a victim of foul play, it certainly hadn't been the budget in, or at least so it seemed. After Sonny's body was found, Lakeith Moody was stopped while driving

Millbrook's car and was arrested on federal charges of being a felon in possession of a gun. It took until his trial in 2014 for him to be convicted of murdering the mother of his child, and he was automatically given a life sentence in accordance with state law. I'm just in shock because I'm like, okay. I'd unlaid on top of this lady's body, said Rhonda Sargent, who stayed in the room after Millbrick disappeared, before her body was found. This is somebody's daughter, someone's mom. Why didn't they investigate this fully?

I think I would have searched all over, her husband James added. I think I would have known to look up under the bed. Yet he didn't, and neither did the police. It was already clear. Talk about ruining a crime scene, Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin said in March. It had also been rented several times with next to no complaints. It was like, well, we don't have any evidence here. The officers wanted to solve it, and so they went in a different direction. Whether or not

there was misfortune, or simply incompetence on the part of investigating police, it's impossible to judge. But what things remain clear, that an alarming number of people have actually slept on beds under which a body had been concealed. So next time you're on the road, and you stop to spend the night at a roadside rest stop, make sure there's nothing masking any particular nasty smells. And as always, always check under the bed, as apparently, you know really well when you'll be sleeping with an unexpected roommate. Two summers ago, I downloaded the dating app, Hinge. I'd heard from friends that it was one of the better platforms for LGBT folks to find dates, so being a lesbian, I decided to give it a go. I found it to be just as good as my friends had mentioned, as the little prompts really give you an idea of what people are

like before you actually connect with them. I hate to sound like this horror story is sponsored by Hinge and Raid Shadow Legends or something, but it really was refreshing to find a dating app that seemed to focus much more on personality than just a person's looks. Anyway, I'm just flicking through profiles, sending out the odd message here and there, when I come across the profile of a girl called Amy. Amy was hotter than hot. She was literally my type too. Cropped dyed hair, sleeve tattoos, but a painfully adorable little face with these big shining green eyes. On top of that, her job title said motorcycle mechanic and there were legit photos of her working on old Harleys and whatnot which, again, I thought was like the hottest thing ever. I double tapped the picture of her working on the bike, typed in a message like, this is so cool, and then just hoped and prayed that she'd be back in touch.

It couldn't have been 20 minutes that passed before I got a little alert saying that Amy has invited you to start the conversation or something like that. I'm thinking no way, is this a real profile? Sometimes a girl might take literally weeks to match with you and here was Amy hitting me up after less than an hour. I had my doubts put it that way but doubts that were quickly put to bed when she turned out to be charming, witty and highly intelligent. We didn't always see eye to eye on certain issues, but the fact that she seemed reasonable and open to compromise was like the polar opposite of a

red flag. It was like a blue flag or something. Something that screamed potentially wifey material over here. And as much as I tried not to hype the whole thing up, I was super excited to meet her to see if we had as much chemistry in person. So we arranged a meeting at a local coffee shop, nice and public for a first time meeting. We're talking on telegram by this point too, so she was able to send me a picture of the outfit she planned on wearing just so I could recognize her. And oh my god, she looked gorgeous. I didn't think I could get any more nervous than I already was, but when I saw her in that flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled so her tats were showing, I swear I felt my blood pressure ramp up by five

notches. Anyway, I take a few deep breaths, psych myself up to meet her, then head out of my apartment and around to the coffee place. Anyone who's been on a first date for the first time in a while will tell you how nerve wracking it can be. Standing there, or sitting there, trying to look cool, while simultaneously being nervous as you're rubbernecking for any sign of your date. So that's the kind of mood I'm in as I'm standing outside the coffee place, stewing in my own anxiety for 10 minutes, then 15, then 20.

By the time I'd been waiting for a half hour, I was starting to get a little worried. Amy had mentioned that traffic was awful, so I figured she might be a few minutes late. But a whole half hour late, I was starting to think I was being stood up. I shoot Amy a text asking how far away she was. It takes a few minutes for her to see the message, but unlike her usual replies which took a matter of minutes to type out, she doesn't send me anything. I figured that might be because she's driving, so I decide to give her a call just in case it's more convenient for her to talk that way. But again, there's no answer.

I'm trying my best not to panic, telling myself like, it's fine, she's just busy, don't freak out. But I think deep down I knew it was all too good to be true. We'd matched too fast, she'd been too nice, I mean she was objectively way out of my league, but it didn't make what came next any easier to deal with. I'm practically staring at her message thread on my phone, praying she'll either call or I'd get that little Amy is typing thing so I can at least know that she's still there. Then thank god, I see that little typing notification notification and I feel this pure wave of

relief wash over me expecting her message to say something along the lines of oh my god I'm so sorry I'm late but it didn't say that it said something entirely different and although I can't remember exactly what the message said as I didn't exactly keep it around my inbox for long. It said something like this. Okay, I think this has gone on long enough and I have to come clean. I'm not a lesbian. I'm not even a girl. Sorry to catfish you. I just thought you were hot and wanted to check you out In person? What did they mean by in person? What followed was the most horrifying moment of revelation that I've ever experienced. Not only was Amy not real, or at least not the person I thought I was talking to, but the psycho creeper who got off on inconveniencing lesbians was actually there, somewhere not too far away, watching me.

It made my skin crawl. I was angry, upset, confused, but the feeling that seemed to override all others was fear. The pure terror of being seen by someone or something that you can't see in turn. I start spinning around trying to find the creep staring at me, but no one seemed to be watching, or if they were, they were certainly doing a great job of hiding it. Then, and I'm not even sure what compelled me to do this, but I started looking up. Now the coffee place I was standing outside was surrounded by tall buildings, possibly the reason my instincts were screaming like, up, up, up. I must have looked like I was standing outside was surrounded by tall buildings, possibly the reason my instincts were screaming like, up, up, up. I must have looked like I was losing my mind out there, spinning

like a top with this terrified look on my face, but suddenly, I saw him. Standing about five stories up in a large open window was the figure of a man. He was so high up that I couldn't quite make out his face, but he was definitely holding something in his hand, and I'd be willing to bet my left arm that it was a freaking cell phone. I'm guessing most of the units were apartments, and they all had those large glass windows, but he was the only person I could see up there. It sure did look like he was staring down at me, but I mean, I didn't know for sure that he was staring at me. Then just when I figured I might just be imagining things and that there was no one actually watching me, just the sick troll that had tricked me into a fake

date, he waved. The guy raised his hand and gives this slow, theatrical wave to make it perfectly clear that he was watching me. I swear to god I nearly puked right there and then. I was this horrible combination of nauseous and numb and I've never felt like I was about to pass out in my entire life, but I feel like I came close right then. My head was just spinning with this like, this can't be happening, how could it be so dumb? No one that hot would ever like me, of course it's a catfish, you're so stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.

All I could do was just walk away with legs like jelly, wondering if I was going to scream or cry first. I've never felt so violated before, not without an actual crime being committed. I had zero recourse other than to report the catfish account, and no matter how upset I was, it wasn't like I could get the cops to arrest anyone over it. So yeah, I walked back to my apartment in a kind of daze, fell onto my mattress, and just ugly cried into a pillow for like a half hour straight. It was seriously one of the worst days of my entire life and it put me off dating apps for almost two whole years. Even now, I have to apologize when

talking to girls because I know I sound overly paranoid asking for video dates or whatever. I guess I'm lucky, and I can kind of blame COVID, but honestly, I don't care how paranoid or overly cautious I might seem. After what I went through, I can assure you, you can never be too careful when it comes to meeting internet strangers. After about a year of using the dating app Hinge, I'd pretty much work through every girl on there. I'm not saying I had much success, but since my preferences were kind of narrow, there weren't all that many potential matches for me. I'd check Hinge every so often to see if there were any new faces, but the vast majority were girls I'd seen before, having deleted their accounts before making new ones, and any actual new faces just didn't seem to do it for me. That's when Coraline appeared in my discover section. Her name wasn't actually Coraline but since this story does get kinda personal I'm gonna

change some names to protect the innocent. Every so often I'd see a girl on Hinge that'd provoke an audible wow from me. Coraline or Coral for short was one of them. At the risk of sounding a little ignorant, when I first saw her, I thought she might be like half Asian or something, but it turned out that she had some indigenous Mexican blood in her, and her grandma was from the native Nahuatl tribe. The point was, she had this unusual but undeniably attractive look about her, and with her dip-dyed shoulder-length hair, I found myself instantly captivated. But as I scrolled down, I saw one of her prompts said, you should know, I was in a car accident and I have some neurological

disabilities and scarring as a result. That kind of came out of left field for me and I found myself confronted with what I suppose is my own bias. I was so game to ask this girl out, but I honestly hesitated when I read the thing about her disabilities. And I mean, why? She's gorgeous, smart, obviously super active if half her pictures are in climbing and workout gear. And from what I could tell, the fact that she continued to date after an accident like that made her extremely brave from where I'm standing. I'm honestly not sure I'd have the same kind of balls to bounce back after something that nearly killed me. That was what swung it.

That and the idea that passing on a girl I'd normally swoon over just because she had some deformities, I think that's a bit of a jerk move on my end, I'm sure you'll agree. So, I sent her a message, and I did what I usually do and just hoped for the best. After a few days later, we match, and the fact that I was so elated about it told me how much it actually mattered to me that she had some differences. I was excited to talk to a charismatic, brave, and beautiful young woman whose attitude towards her own adversity was, frankly, inspiring for me. At first we talked about literature and traveling and by the time she used the word petrichor in a sentence, petrichor is the earthly scent produced when rain falls on dry soil,

I was practically throwing my phone number at her, and luckily for me, she was actually keen on continuing the conversation. Texting and voice notes soon progressed to organizing a first date, and we met for coffee and donuts one rainy afternoon, fixing all of the world's problems over the course of like a three-hour conversation. I didn't even try to broach the subject of her accident, I figured that she'd talk about it if or when she was ready. But as she said, she had this policy of

fail fast, and if I couldn't deal with her disabilities, there was no point pursuing anything. She showed me some of the scarring in her hairline and some of the scarring on her shoulder too. The accident had left her unable to lift her left arm above her shoulder height, but perhaps the thing that had the biggest impact on her life was the night terrors. Coral mentioned how she'd gotten her panic attacks under control with therapy and medication, but that residual fear seemed to have just confided itself to the nighttime. She said it was one of the biggest things that held her back from getting back to dating after the accident, and she'd often worried she'd have an attack of night terrors after being intimate with somebody.

I'll be honest, I kind of worried about that too. Not so much because it would freak me out, I totally get why she had nightmares after a major car accident, but she was terrified of embarrassing herself, as she put it. So, I did something entirely against my instincts, and waited like two months to try and seal the deal, so to speak. I waited until I was entirely sure she was comfortable around me, sleeping in the same bed and all that stuff, and only then did I invite her back to my place to make the next move. I promise I won't go into any unnecessary detail, but it was wonderful, and even with the scarring she hated so much, she was beautiful. And as we fell asleep in each other's arms, I started to wonder,

what was I so worried about in the first place? I wake up in the middle of the night, roll over to check my phone and it's about 3am. It's perfectly quiet so Coral hasn't had night terrors or whatever so my first thought is like she's comfy and asleep. Awesome. I roll back to try and spoon Coral a little and find that there's no one there. I figure she's just in the bathroom or whatever, I have an en suite, but there's no lights on and no noise coming from it. I check the floor next to the side of the bed where she's tossed some of her clothes

and they're gone. And only then in my half-sleep, half-drunken state do I realize she's bailed while I was asleep. I mean it hurt, I'd never had a girl get up and leave in the middle of the night like that but before I even had time to process it, I heard the front door of my apartment rattling. So little side note, I live in this really terrible Brooklyn apartment at the time, one where the door wouldn't stay shut unless you actually locked it from the inside. So, unlike other places where that kind of sound would indicate someone was outside

wanting to get in, I realized that it might well be Coral making noise as she's trying to get out. I didn't think she was having a night terror or like some kind of episode. I have no idea what to make of anything and I'm still half asleep and incredibly confused. So it was with a fair amount of nerves and caution that I edged around my bedroom and into the main hallway to see what was going on with that door. And just like I'd deduced in the final moments before I left my bedroom, it was indeed Coral, trying to get out of my apartment, probably confused and scared as to why the door was locked. I was sure that I'd mentioned something about his her and that my keys lived in a teeny little holder by the door that looked like a little cuckoo clock. You wouldn't know it could open

unless someone tells you. But then again, coming back home a little tipsy after our meal might have meant it slipped my mind entirely. Uh, Coral? Are you okay? I asked her. She just span around to face me, and it was only then that I realized that she had a corkscrew in her hand, and she's holding it almost like a pair of brass knuckles, with the screw emerging from between her fingers. Who are you? She screams at me. Why is the door locked? Let me out of here before I call the cops. I realized right then that she was having some kind of episode.

She'd had a night terror, forgotten where she was or something, and now she was freaking out. It was scary, sure, but at least I knew what was happening, and after having talked about it a little, I knew exactly what I had to do. Coraline, it's me. You came here after some food, we slept together. You're safe, I promise. I'm sorry about my door. I have to lock it like that, but you're free to leave if you want to, you just need to calm down. Please." I try to get it all out at once, all while staying calm enough to bring her down from the brink. Open the door before I kill you!

Having anyone lunge at you with a corkscrew is intimidating. It really doesn't matter if they're 5 foot nothing and incredibly skinny, but have someone lunge at you with a corkscrew when you're completely naked? That's real fear, let me tell you. Coraline? I started talking really, really slow. I can't open the door without the key. I need to get the key. That's when she approaches even further and pushes the sharp point of the corkscrew into my neck. Not hard enough to actually puncture my throat, but oh my god, one smidgen of force more and I'd have been squirting blood like a killed Bill Henchman. There came a moment when

I was sure she was about to plunge that piece of cold steel into my neck. She took this sharp inhale and kind of flexed her arm, I don't know, it's hard to describe, but I remember my heart just pounding in my chest as I'm thinking the next thing I'd be doing would be rushing the call 911. But right as she seems like she's about to stab me with a freaking corkscrew. She relents, and I can see this look enter her eyes as she sort of, and this is the best way I can describe it, wakes up. She sees the corkscrew up my neck and just drops it, recoiling like she was horrified at what she was doing. She looks me dead in the eye and stammers out,

I'm sorry, I... And then her speech just degenerated into silent, gasping tears. My heart absolutely broke for her in that moment. The big thing she'd feared about getting back into dating, it had happened, and it was probably worse than either of us had imagined it would be. It was dawn by the time she calmed down and as much as I insisted that she was free to leave, I wanted her to stay. I wanted to be supportive. I hated the idea of making her feel like I was mothering her or whatever but at the same time,

I just wanted to protect her and help her so bad. Not the healthiest inclination when it comes to relationships but it is what it is, I suppose. I'd like to give you some kind of super happy ending here too, but my relationship with Coral didn't last. She just didn't feel like she was quite ready to date yet, and rushing it had made her feel worse than ever. That sucked to hear. It sucked hard. And as that dumb old cliche goes, if you love something, let it go. I still think about her from time to time, and I hope she's doing much better than she was. And Coral, if by some small possibility you're reading this, and you recognize that this is about you, I love you, and I forgive you. After matching with this art student girl on Hinge, we hit it off and organized a first date.

Definitely wasn't the greatest I'd ever been on, but it wasn't bad either. And although I was down to see her again, I didn't think that she'd ever been on but it wasn't bad either and although I was down to see her again I didn't think that she'd text me again. But then the very next night she texted me saying that she just so happened to be at a bar in my neighborhood and asked if I wanted to hook up or something. Why not? I thought I could roll up, get a few drinks, maybe get her back to my place. It could make for a great night. And at first, I was so glad I went down. We had considerably more chemistry than the night before. She seemed open and chatty and really flirty, and I just figured maybe she'd like opened up or something. Maybe talked it out with a friend and decided, yeah, I think I do like that guy. I'm serious too,

we really did have a great time, none of the social awkwardness or shyness, just pure chemistry. Then right around closing time she hits me with a, I think we should go back to your place, and gave me this look that made me blush so hard I could literally feel it. I had no idea what I was doing right but having decided not to overthink it, I just got us an Uber and got us back to my place. The whole cab ride back, it's the same deal. We're kinda drunk but we both have it together. The Uber driver has some song on that she likes, she asks him to turn it up, he does and she starts belting out whatever the lyrics are. Kinda rowdy sure but still good vibes. But when just as we pull up to my apartment,

each of us thanks the driver and I just remember watching as she opens up her door, then just sort of leans out face first and wipes out in the concrete. I thought she might have been seriously injured at first, but thank god it was just a little swelling around her forehead. But still, I got her into my apartment with a bag of frozen peas on her head. Only she can barely speak at that point, and I'm not even sure if it was the alcohol or the hit she took falling out of the cab. So, I'm like juggling, getting her glasses of water, icing her forehead and praying it's not so serious that we have to call 911 or something. But over the next course

of time, I don't even know how long, but my anxiety just rises and rises as her conditions get worse and worse. It got to the point that she could barely speak, but she's just assuring me like, got a nap, just need a nap and I'm good. So I show her into my bedroom, let her collapse onto the bed, make sure she won't swallow her puke if she just so happens to do, and then I pretty much leave her to it. I wasn't about to be a total creep and do anything weird, I just gave her the space she needed and hoped she wouldn't puke.

It slowly dawns on me that she's most definitely not just going to take a nap when I open up my bedroom door to check on her and she's snoring like a bear. By that point, I'm actually pretty sleepy myself but again, in a bid not to come off like a total creep, I decided not to share the bed with her. I grab her my running flask full of water, almost impossible to spill, put my small office trash can by the bed just in case she needs to hurl, and then I get comfy on the couch that's just become my bed for the night. I honestly can't remember if I drifted off to sleep or not, but the next thing I know, I'm staring at the ceiling, hearing some seriously weird noises from my bedroom. I get up, walk into the hall, then push the bedroom door open to check

on my date and this is what I see. She's kind of groaning, holding her head in her hands and I clearly hear her need to pee in the middle of what sounded like a long uncomfortable groan. She rolls onto her side like she's about to climb off my bed, but instead of actually pulling it off, she screws up completely, rolls off the bed entirely, and knocks the trash can over as she falls to the floor with a thud. Then I swear to god, she just reaches for her drawers, pulling them down and starts like, peeing up like a freaking fountain. I had no idea girls could even do that and I'd have been impressed if it wasn't my carpet she was peeing all over. As squeamish as I was about getting the girls pee all over me,

I managed to get her up before I walk her to the bathroom, sit her down in the toilet. She makes a few more grunts, then starts going again so I take the opportunity to clean up my carpet a little. Then as I'm soaking up the pee into a dish towel and wringing it out into a bowl of soapy water I just hear, dud, against the wall, sounding an awful lot like my date just fell off the effing toilet. At this point she is completely immobile and I can't get her up, almost like she just got 50 pounds heavier in the space of about 5 minutes. So I grab a pillow, prop her head against it and resolve to sleep in the bathroom with her

just in case A. anything else happened or B. my sketchy roommate came home and did anything weird. That's another scary story entirely by the way. After a few hours of rough sleep, she wakes me up and tells me she needs to use the bathroom. I leave so she can do her thing in peace, but after maybe 10 or 15 minutes I start worrying again so I go to knock on the door only to find it unlocked and slightly ajar. I push it open, only to be confronted with one of the most obscene stenches I'd ever been faced with in my life. Not only did this adorable young woman produce one of the most heinous stenches in the history of smells, but she had somehow

managed to poop absolutely everywhere except in the actual toilet bowl. Like to this day, I have no idea how she did it, but I couldn't seem to get the smell out of my bathroom for weeks afterwards. On top of that, the way she'd fallen had somehow gotten her head almost jammed between the toilet and the sink, and for a while I wasn't sure I'd be able to get her out without seriously hurting her neck. I managed to get her head free, but she was completely out for the count by that point and there was nothing more I could do for her other than just allow her to get some rest. I can't get her up and I just can't face the prospect of wiping her butt for her so I just leave her in the bathroom with some water and some towels and head back to the couch in hopes

of getting a few hours of sleep before work. Oh yeah, I had work the next morning. After a few hours, I hear her get up and go to my bed. I check in on her and she is out, fully clothed, in my bed and covered in puke still. Feeling utterly disgusted and defeated, I go back to the couch. When I get up for work, I go to check on her at around 7am. Again, she's snoring like a bear, so I just leave her a $10 bill, a set of clean clothes that are roughly her size, and directions to the nearest laundromat. Although if I was her, I'd have just tossed my dirty clothes in a dumpster and forgot all about them. I figured I'd done her a huge favor. I get that it wasn't her fault but she had completely screwed

up my bathroom and made a complete mess of my bedroom too. I really did think that was the worst it was going to get and it wasn't like I was expecting a groveling apology either. I mean maybe a thank you wouldn't have gone amiss. But what came next, I don't think I ever could have guessed, not in a million years. I get a text from her that day, just after I get home from work. I expected to say thank you, maybe trying to piece together what happened that night, but instead, the message basically says this. I know it was you. I'm going to the cops. I hope you get everything you deserve in prison. It seemed so out of place for that second. I thought it was a joke or in bad taste or a text to the wrong person or something. I reply with, excuse me? And she follows up with, and I'm paraphrasing but this is the gist, You put something in my drink. I'm getting my hair tested. Expect a visit from the cops, you scumbag. Apparently the only way to test for that drug is

through the hair. It's expensive, inaccurate, which terrified me, but it's the only way to do it. And it all clicked. She thought I'd spiked her. Because we ended up at my apartment, that was her conclusion. That it must have been me who tried to violate her. That was the single most eye-wateringly scary moment of my entire life, realizing I'd been accused of something like that. And from where I was standing, there was no reason to think that it wasn't me. Like think about it, you hear about a girl getting spiked and she just happens to end up back at some guy's apartment who she met on Hinge. I mean Jesus, I might think I was guilty too. I didn't text her back. I figured any text might be used

as evidence or whatever and I mean, what do you even say when you're accused of something like that aside from all the obvious stuff? She'd obviously made up her mind already. The only person worth contacting might well be a lawyer at that point. Then boom. The day came when my phone rang, and it was a cop asking if he could stop by and talk to me at home. I mean he actually gave me the don't leave town line as we were hanging up. I was a full on suspect in something that made me feel physically sick to think about, as horrifying as it was surreal, and I was just going to have to deal with it. What follows is like 6 weeks worth of boring police procedure and in that time, I had a full on nervous breakdown. Again, another story entirely. But here's the skinny on the accusation.

My date couldn't actually remember which bar we'd been to, but I could. And once the cops knew where we'd been drinking, they were able to check the CCTV cameras they had. Which just so happened to catch a guy hanging around there who was actually on the offender's registry. Not only does this guy approach my date and her drink while I'm in the bathroom, but after we leave, he hangs around looking all over for someone, presumably my date. The cops go pay him a visit and find a ton of GHB and other creepy creeper stuff in his apartment, along with trophies he'd kept from a bunch of other girls. It looked like none of the DNA was going to come back as a match

for any on the police database and then boom, something like the final pair of underwear they test comes back a match, the guy gets arrested and they have an airtight case against him and he goes to jail. And then that was that. No apology from the police, no apology from the girl. I blame that whole thing for me beginning to lose my hair early and I didn't get so much as a cent in compensation. I suppose I should count myself lucky that the justice system didn't screw me over or anything but still, I wouldn't wish that kind of accusation on my worst enemy. I ended up matching with this girl on Hinge and don't ask me how, but the topic of conversation ended up being piercings. She had a bunch of visible and apparently non-visible piercings and after I mentioned considering a nose piercing a while ago, we got into it as

to why I didn't get one. I was honest, I told her I put it off and put it off because I was scared it'd hurt. But like, the longer I put it off, the less I wanted it, if that makes sense. Until in the end, I just wasn't all that fussed on getting it done. She playfully takes offense to this, calling me a little baby and saying we should go on a piercing date together. I told her we should probably wait until at least the third date to go full daddy-dom. A joke, obviously, and the conversation then kind of meandered into other topics. Cut to our first date. Everything going pretty good. We get beer and wings. We're getting on well. And then she says she has a surprise for me. I'm pretty stoked at the idea. I couldn't

possibly guess what it was, but if she'd brought me a gift or like thought of somewhere cool to take me, I thought that was pretty thoughtful. Anyway, I ask what it is and she says she can't show me in the wings place. I have to wait until we get outside. Kind of mysterious, right? And that only makes the anticipation build and build until the time we finally do get outside. And I'm incredibly excited to see what she's got in store for me. So like I said, she had a lot of piercings, and was kind of like a punk chick in general. There is a little context for the fact that she had this cut off denim jacket on, with like three or four safety pins running through one of the collars. She takes one of the safety pins, unfastens it, and before I could even ask

her what she was thinking, she rams the sharp of it through both, I repeat, both, of her nostrils. See? Doesn't hurt at all. She said, as all this blood starts trickling out of her nostrils and down onto her lips, now you've got no excuse not to. No matter how much I insisted, this girl was determined to pierce at least one of my nostrils, and went from like a playful haha no thanks, to me physically resisting her and eventually telling her to get off of me. As you can imagine, this caused quite a scene as she legit looked like she's been punched in the mouth and now we're having a full on shouting match. Right about the time she screams, what's your problem? I realize there's an actual crowd gathering and a lot of this crowd seems to

think that the girl's mouth is bloody because I hit her. Now let me make it clear, even when I'm trying to keep this girl from shoving a piece of metal in my face, I didn't get physical with her at all. The most I did was grab her wrist and keep it away from me because even if she was only joking around, all it would take after a few beers would be a slip or a trip. Or why am I even justifying this, don't put pieces of a sharp metal near the other people's faces and expect a good reaction. But anyway, this little crowd started forming and most people are concerned with the girl if she needed 911 calling for her mouth, helpful stuff, not accusation stuff. But on the other hand, there's a few dudes circling me like, did you just lay hands on her,

bruh? Think you're tough hitting on a lady like that, MF her, all that kind of stuff. I obviously fire back by telling them it's none of their business, but as soon as the words leave my lips, I realize that, although it wasn't any of their business, and it wasn't what they thought it was, if anything, mind your own business just confirm that I was some woman beating POS. But the worst thing, when it became obvious what I was being accused of, the girl had been so offended by my piercing rejection that she did absolutely nothing to reassure anyone that I hadn't hit her. The last thing I did before I had to just flee the entire scene was look over to her like,

really? You're like this? And it turns out, she was. Because what else would you want to call a girl who turns a perfectly nice date into a potential lynching in the space of about 10 minutes? If those dudes had caught up to me, or if they weren't so drunk or hadn't been as athletic as I was at the time, I'd probably have had my head bashed in on the sidewalk and there's a decent chance I wouldn't have the brain function to even be writing this. So please, be careful with the kind of people you're meeting up with on dating apps. I think one of the coolest things promoted with them is the whole video date thing that's introduced during this whole pandemic thing,

I mean, not so much because they're corona compliant or whatever, more because I feel like you get a much better idea of someone's personality that way. And if I'd had done that with Piercer Girl and got a hint of how intense she was, I might not have been so quick to take her out. And taking her out not only led to the single worst date I've ever been on, but also one of the scariest nights of my entire life. To be continued... I love telling this story. I mean it's creepy but it's kind of morbidly fascinating too. Some seriously crazy people really do walk among us. So first thing you need to know is I get migraines with aura. I generally vomit from pain from them. It's like hard to see sometimes cause light sources have big halos and everything like glows. It's all unpleasant. About two years ago, I'm excitedly getting ready for a

hinge date and I start feeling a migraine coming. It's like 45 minutes from the time we set. This dude's been super pleasant over chat. He has this cute hipster Buddy Holly look going on and I swear if anybody ever told me, sorry I have a headache less than an hour before our first date, I delete their number. So obviously I have to go. Sometimes I can ward off my migraines with caffeine and we're going to a Thai place so I rush through finishing dressing for the date and head to the restaurant because I've decided that the solution is to get there early, drink a Thai iced coffee to load up on caffeine and get this migraine gone before he shows up. It doesn't work. Dude shows up. I keep casually like propping my head up on my hand while we talk

so I can press against my temple with my fingers. I'm only making one word responses and positive noises that is my entire part of the conversation. At two separate points I leave the table and go puke in the restaurant's bathroom and then come back pretending like nothing happened. I would like to say I'm just an amazing actress but I'm not. I get called out instantly when I show up to work hung over. Also, let me reiterate I was not speaking in complete sentences this entire dinner so this guy was like on a date with a corpse. He was so into me. He kissed me outside the restaurant and I pulled away pretending shyness. I had puke in my mouth. Gave him some line about it being pleasant and went home to die. The dude spent three weeks straight trying to get me to go out with him again He was so into this corpse woman he went on a date with

I shared no thoughts, no personal anecdotes I did nothing the whole date but nod weakly And he was really into that I am when not physically impaired what one would call Abroad in the positive sense I curse and talk a ton of crap and Don't take anything from anyone and Have thought about everything in the positive sense. I curse and talk a ton of crap and don't take anything from anyone and have thought about everything in the world. This dude would hate my actual self and to be

honest, I think the fact that he apparently wanted to date someone with no opinions of their own is probably why he's single. angle. So I had been out of the dating game for roughly a year, and being the awkward mess that I am, my best friend had convinced me to try out Hinge. Figured, eh, I can get to know people online and then try a date. Terrible idea, I'm still mad at her. So I meet this guy on the site and we spend a few weeks chatting and getting to know each other and he seems really cool. He asked me on a date and I said sure. And here's the part where I'm a moron and am surprised I didn't get murdered. I say I prefer low key dates so he suggests that he cook us dinner and we watch indie horror films at his

place. I agree. And I'm so stupid for this. I show up to his place and have developed a code word system through text with my bestie and she has all the details of where I am. He meets me outside and I realize I tower over him. At 5 foot 7, that rarely happens to me, but I shrug it off. Can't help your height, right? We go up to his place and he shows me around, emphasizing on the bedroom. Then takes me to the kitchen to show me the four bottles of very expensive wine he bought for me. And no dinner prepared. He pours me a glass and I awkwardly pet his dog.

We sit on the couch and he puts on this weird Italian art film. No subtitles, and all Italian, neither of us know what is happening. So I just sit there, feet flat on the ground, spine rod shaped, sipping my wine when he decides to basically curl up in my lap. And he starts nuzzling my face, like that thing cats do, but with his face on my face for at least 10 straight minutes. His dog looks at me with pity. At this point, I excuse myself to the bathroom and text the bestie to call me and get me out of there. After taking her call 20 minutes later, I politely try and thank him for the glass of wine and make my way off the couch and he lays across me and force cuddles me. Wouldn't let me leave so I just stood up and he plummets to the floor.

Because like I said, I'm an Amazonian compared to him. He pops up off the floor to help me put my coat on and he gives me one good sniff right at the nape of my neck. Pretty sure some of my hair is still infused to his brain from how deep an inhale that was. I made no attempt to hide my running down the three flights of stairs and up the block to my car. Deleted my account that night. Please. Never.

Again. Sintra I met this guy on Hinge, swapped numbers, texted a lot and thought, why not go on a date? Well, there were a lot of things he failed to mention, such as his extreme Tourette's. Every sentence had a swear word thrown in randomly and he would interrupt me constantly while I brushed aside because I have met a lot of people with the syndrome before. His height was almost a foot less than his profile said. Said he was just over 6 foot but I'm 5'7 and towered over him. And of course, forgot to mention the 6 other girls he was in a relationship with. I was uneasy initially because of how much he forgot to mention the six other girls he was in a relationship with. I was uneasy initially because of how much he failed to mention, but it got worse.

He took me to a massive antique store, we both love old stuff, which was basically the creepiest warehouse I'd been in. It was dimly lit with all sorts of creepy dolls lining the walls, not my kind of antique store. So we're walking through it, with him randomly shouting swear words and I just want to go home. He kept grabbing my shoulder, cupping the shoulder and squeezing hard, then would run his hand down my back and grabbing my butt. I tell him I'm not comfortable with that, and he grabs my hand and pulls me into the bathroom at the end of the shop, throws me against the wall so I end up on my hands and knees. I'm kind of in shock now. Locks the door, lowers his pants and thrusts his junk into my face. When I didn't follow his request, he grabbed my jaw and even tried opening my mouth.

A finger slips in and I take the opportunity to bite. This freaked him out, screaming, what's wrong with you? And I stand up, slap him across the face and get out as soon as possible. I'm crying while running out of the shop and the shopkeeper stops me and asks what's wrong. I explain what just happened and he looked over to see my date chasing after me. Thank the lord he was arrested on sight, and I haven't heard from him since. Thankfully, I'm now with a wonderful man, so even in all the trauma,

I suppose some things do work out in the end. Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, Sveta, I went on a date with a hinge guy once, who right in the middle of it said he had to stop off at his apartment because he forgot his wallet. This is as we're inexplicably moving from one coffee shop to another, one that just so happened to be on the same route as his apartment. He asks me if I want to come inside just in case he's searching for a while and since he's been perfectly nice and non-threatening so far, I didn't see any reason not to. Then right as we get into his TV room,

he ends up pulling me down onto his beanbag and trying to make out with me. He didn't do it in a super aggressive way, so much as he was like trying to be sexy. He was not. When I called him out on it he said he was just messing around but I was so turned off at that point that I ended up just getting up and walking home a few minutes later. He texted me a few times, trying to apologize and assure me that it was a joke, but I don't know, it was so cringy that I just couldn't get past it. Fast forward to a year later and I read on the local news site that he was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and assault of a woman, after the woman that he had been on a date with complained to the police that he'd held her up against her will. Apparently when she tried to leave,

he held her captive in his apartment and beat her and assaulted her. He could have faced life in prison, but after just six years in prison he might actually get out this year if parole goes well. Six years. He should be in prison for the rest of his life, and sometimes I wonder how close I came to being the one tied up in his basement. In the early hours of June 19th, 2014, the body of 23-year-old student Anthony Walgate was found on the doorstep of an apartment building in Barking, a leafy suburb of the English capital, London. The man who had discovered his body, 39-year-old Stephen Port, claimed that he had come across Anthony whilst he was in the grip of some kind of seizure,

and had died before he had the chance to call emergency services. Anthony had been known to work as a gay escort from time to time and was also a known drug user, so the initial police investigation pinned its hopes solely on the pending toxicology report, which they believed would reveal a fatal amount of narcotics in Anthony's system. Anthony did indeed test positive for narcotics, but the coroner who performed the autopsy passed on some curious observations to the relevant police officers. He noted that Anthony had enough GHB in his system to kill an elephant, and if he was indeed a regular drug user, it's unlikely he'd be foolish enough to ingest such a significant amount of very powerful drug, especially not in one

sitting. It wasn't out of the question. Stranger things do happen after all, but the advice was clear. Don't rule out foul play. A few months after Anthony's body was found, 22-year-old Gabriel Cavari was still settling into his new life in the United Kingdom. Gabriel had only recently moved to the UK from Slovakia and was excited to be living in a country he believed was much more tolerant of his lifestyle than his native land. With that in mind, Gabriel downloaded the LGBT-focused dating app Grindr in the hopes of finding a special someone to take him on romantic, exploratory walks around his new home. It was through Grindr that Gabriel met an Englishman named John. Not only did John seem handsome and friendly, but by a stroke of good luck, he had a room up for rent in his large

London townhouse. Gabriel had been looking for a place to stay for some time, and given how likable John was, it made sense for him to take the room should they share the right chemistry, and indeed they did. Gabriel ended up living in John's spare room for six weeks, but at some point, he seemed keen to move out. There are clues as to why it might have happened, but we know Gabriel mentioned the fact to a neighbor of his named Ryan who became rather familiar with him over the weeks he lived in John's spare room. Familiar enough for Ryan to notice when Gabriel suddenly disappeared and without the goodbye he'd

promised him. John insisted that Gabriel had simply moved out one day, excited to move into his new place, but Ryan felt Gabriel was far too warm a person to simply vanish without a simple farewell. And he was right to worry, because on August 28th of 2014, Gabriel's lifeless corpse was found by a woman walking by the nearby St. Margaret's Church. Gabriel, much like Anthony Walgate before him, was discovered to have died from what appeared to be an accidental overdose of GHB. In the course of their investigation, the police asked John if he knew where Gabriel's new flat was. He didn't know exactly where it was, but he did know it was in the leafy suburb of Barking. The same place his body was found, at a church that was only a few hundred meters away

from where Anthony Walgate's body was found. Just when police began to wonder if there were any serious connections between the deaths of Gabriel and Anthony, the dead body of yet another young gay man was found. The discovery of 21-year-old Daniel Whitworth's body was tragic and horrifying on its own, but it was the circumstances in which it was found that really horrified police. Not only was Daniel's body found by the exact same woman who had found Gabriel's body just weeks before, it was located in the exact same spot in the graveyard of St. Margaret's Church. Alongside Daniel's body was a note in which Daniel claimed to be the one who had given Gabriel Cavari the GHB overdose. The idea had been to take a little of the drug so

they could attend a party together, yet Gabriel had taken far too much, and a terrified Daniel simply dumped his lifeless body in the churchyard. Then, wracked with guilt at the death of his lover, Daniel had walked into the very same churchyard where he disposed of his body and taken an overdose of the very same drug, GHB. It seemed like modern-day Shakespeare, a tragic story of love and loss that would haunt and enthrall London's LGBT community for generations. But when Daniel's stepmother, Mandy, was shown part of the note that was left, she declared that the style and tone was nothing like that of her stepson,

who had regular written notes to her when staying out late or coming home early. Yet as we stated, she was only shown a certain section of the note for the purposes of a handwriting sample. She wasn't shown the part which said, Don't blame the guy I was with last night. And this guy, police determined, was Gabriel's new flatmate. And it wasn't just the police that took an increasing interest in the deaths. Gabriel's old roommate and neighbor, John and Ryan, actually contacted police to insist that they focus their investigation on Gabriel's new flatmate.

John had very little information on this mystery person, but promised he'd do everything he could do to dig up the info. On top of that, John contacted the LGBT publication Pink News, hoping they might be willing to help. Thankfully they were and began to raise awareness of a possible serial killer operating among the London LGBT community. However, the Metropolitan Police were quick to dismiss the fears of a serial killer, insisting that there were no solid threads between the three deaths and that the public were not to worry. But as we know, this was an outright lie. The rare GHB overdoses among experienced drug users should have been enough to at least raise a few eyebrows. And as much as we can understand the police's desire not to cause mass panic,

denying threads when two of the men were found in exactly the same place is outright deception. The investigation floundered, and at one point, Daniel's stepmother was told that there was simply nothing more the police could do. But again, this didn't seem to be the case as homicide detectives actually managed to break into Anthony Walgate's Grindr account, one of the final apps they thought to inspect for evidence. It was here they made their breakthrough, as Anthony was found to be chatting with none other than the man who had supposedly stumbled across his body on the night of his death, 39-year-old Stephen Port. Two days later, Port was identified and arrested. During his initial interviews with

police, Port was confronted with his internet search history, which detailed an obsession with violent images related to young men who were drugged and assaulted. The bottle of GHB found with Daniel Whitworth's body was found to include Port's DNA, and it emerged that three weeks before Anthony Walgate died, a young man had been found incoherent, vomiting, in a state of distress in the company of Port near Barking train station. After his trial, the verdict was unanimous, and Stephen Port was found guilty on November 23rd of 2016, sentenced to life in prison for the murders and series of intimate assaults.

Yet that wasn't the only major events in the aftermath of Port's murders. A grand total of 17 police officers were investigated on supposed misconduct charges, with critics citing a pig ignorance of LGBT dating culture leading to two needless deaths. Police were apparently content to believe that all three deaths were tragic overdoses, including Daniel's morbidly romantic gesture of remorse, barely taking the time to consider that three GHB overdoses over the course of one deadly summertime were anything more than a curious coincidence. Similarly, shoddy investigations have been conducted in the deaths of gay men in the past, such as in the cases of Dennis Nilsen and Colin Ireland, something which critics were quick to point out. On top of that, police did not question Port's neighbor Ryan, who had on one occasion

visited Port's flat and seen a larger container containing a cacophony of drugs. No handwriting expert was contacted to check Daniel Whitworth's note, nor did they check it for fingerprints or DNA. Particularly shocking is that the same woman walking her dog found two of the bodies in the same graveyard on different days, and yet police didn't make the connection. When informed of this, the woman herself was shocked that the police did not seem more concerned. Connections between victims were made by the public as early as the second victim and had police investigated then, it is possible that Daniel and Jack would not have been killed.

John's concerns along with Daniel's stepmother Mandy's, fell on deaf ears. Credit must go to them and Jack's sisters Donna and Jen for fighting to bring justice for their loved ones. As a result of his disgustingly predatory actions targeting young, innocent gay men, Stephen Port was dubbed the Grinderciller by the British tabloids. And his well-circulated mugshots belayed the cold, dead eyes of a true psychopath, the kind that comes to prey on the most vulnerable people in society. Those whose lifestyles are still so misunderstood by those around them, and that misunderstanding, like so many times before, proved fatal for Anthony Walgate,

Gabriel Cavari, and Daniel Whitworth. May they rest in peace. Grinder can be fun and all, but did I ever have a bad experience with it? God, yes, I did. And let me tell you, it was not a fun experience. With the advent of dating apps and the preference options they provide, it's easier than ever to meet other gay people. The only trouble being sometimes you give away a little too much personal info without realizing it. So back in 2014, I had just made the decision to pack up my life for the very sunny Portugal. I'd come to learn that the capital city of Lisbon had a thriving art community and a gorgeous climate. The Barrio Alto and Principe Real neighborhoods also hosted some

of the best gay party scenes in Europe, but the thing that tipped the balance for me was when a friend told me that Lisbon was the bear capital of the world, and considering you can't swing a cat in my area without hitting a twink or an otter, that little tidbit sealed the deal. I was excited to be living in a new vibrant city and my Portuguese was getting better by the day. The only trouble was, I didn't really know anyone and being something of a social butterfly, it was something I'd have to remedy, and fast. I tried dating apps periodically back in my home area, but if you're hitting up the gay bars on a Friday and Saturday night, you don't really

need any help hooking up. But I knew my area like the back of my hand. I grew up there. Yet here was Lisbon, an entirely new place. It couldn't hurt to find myself a cute tour guide, especially one that might fancy buying me a few drinks. So I downloaded Tinder, Grindr, and one or two other apps, but I definitely had the most success on Grindr. I think maybe because it's more geared towards LGBT folks. Either way, as much as it wasn't traditionally how I'd made friends in the past, Grindr did turn out to be a pretty nifty solution to my lack of social life. Or at least, so it seemed. Because it turns out that the dating app experience is a universal one.

Even for straight folks, it's a case of a match and don't talk, match and don't talk over and over again. I mean, I did get to go out on a date with a German trainee teacher and oh my god, it was so cultured and so hot and I was just there for it. Other than that though, for the first two months or so, my entire life was pretty much confined to two, like, different Lisbon streets. One where I did my shopping, and the other where my flat and favorite coffee shop was. The point is, I was itching to see more of Lisbon, but I wasn't keen on the idea of doing it alone, so almost every time my phone buzzes, I'd get

excited. So one day, same thing happens. I get a message from a private profile saying, you're cute. I've seen you around ISCTE, which is the University Institute in Lisbon. Not on its own, that's nothing to freak out about. My uni had quite a big student body and quite an international one at that. So I'm still buzzing to have gotten a message. So I spend the evening chatting with them. He seemed nice. It's not like sparks were flying or anything, but I was definitely cool with meeting up with him. At first, anyway.

Because the next day I get a message from him saying, I stopped by Cafe X today, didn't see you there. It just so happened that my profile picture was taken at this cafe but it wasn't like I was standing outside it. You'd have to have a good eye to be able to recognize where I was. I was a bit taken aback but mostly impressed that he recognized the location. He obviously knew it well and I figured if we frequented the same coffee shops, we might be a good fit. How naive I was. The message progressed to random ones saying things like, the things I do to you. Now,

I kind of liked the attention, but unsolicited it just got a bit overwhelming. I messaged him back saying I was a bit busy with all my studies. I actually was at that time so it wasn't entirely a lie and they might not be able to meet up for a while. I promised him I'd text him if I'd found myself with a free evening and thanked him for being so friendly. A polite way of saying please back off. I kind of thought that this sort of subtle speak might suffice, but apparently not. I didn't get a message from him for a couple of days and I was actually quite relieved that he was mature enough to respect my wishes. But then came the message that changed the

way I felt about the situation entirely and I think you'll agree that some of these are objectively creepy. You look cute today. I was half asleep when I read that one and at first it just came across as nice, albeit a little bit bewildering. But then the implication hit me. He'd seen me at some point that day. He'd seen me and he just watched. That really creeped me out. Voyeurism has never been something I've been into and again, unsolicited and it's downright creepy. A couple of days later came the message that read, I saw you walking out of a building near ISCTE. Is that where your apartment is? And he sent another suggesting we had mutual friends and that we should all hang out. I felt creeped on,

smothered, and it was gross, and honestly I didn't feel safe at all. I stopped replying to his messages and just hoped he'd take the hint. I know I should have just deleted Grindr and maybe used a different app, but I had a couple of guys I was talking to and it was just about getting comfortable enough to meet up and swap numbers and I didn't want to throw that away because of one bad experience. Again, he left it a couple of days before he messaged me again, but when he did, it was literally the one thing I didn't want to read. I think it's really rude how you're just ignoring me.

I don't think I deserve such treatment. Why don't I come over to your place and we can talk this out like adults? It seemed he'd taken the time to work out that it was indeed the building near the ISCTE that I lived in and I can't even describe how horrible that feeling of being trapped was. I didn't even want to go near the lovely balcony that overlooked the street just in case he was watching or something. Knowing the building that I lived in was one thing. Knowing the exact apartment was another thing entirely.

The last thing I messaged him before I blocked him was, If I see you around my flat, I'm calling the police. After blocking his account, he made a new one and basically begged me to go out with him. He was a little bit older than me and confessed he'd never had a boyfriend. Granted, that did make me feel a bit sorry for him, but pity isn't something I want to feel for a partner. And given how overbearing and stalkery he could be, I reckoned I'd have to get a little bit more creative to get rid of him without getting murdered. I told him, yes, I think I can manage to meet up, but my boyfriend is visiting from the UK, so he'd have to come with us. I didn't have a boyfriend, in case it wasn't clear. He was just so sickly romantic that I figured a free love approach

might put him off. He told me he'd set up a date, and I braced myself for the next wave of psycho obsessiveness but to my pleasant surprise he never bothered me again. Looking back I don't think he'd ever attack me, I think he was just really, really desperate. But all the true crime I've ever watched involving stranger danger was just a textbook example of how he was acting and it really, really freaked me out. I still do feel a bit sorry for him and I hoped he chilled out and found someone lovely but I don't regret blocking him and taking the hostile approach that I did because when it comes to dating apps, the one thing I've learned is that it's better to be safe than sorry and to always trust your instincts. Summer of 2019, I'm browsing some Grindr profiles when I come across this guy that looked like a cuter, twinkier version of my ex-boyfriend Alejandro.

I was smitten. I think I have a thing for Latino guys, and this one ticked all my boxes. He was actually from Argentina, so the accent had me swooning, and after I made him laugh with my terrible Spanish, we agreed to meet up for some cocktails one night at a bar here in Austin. When we met, his attitude was a huge red flag. He seemed temperamental and bratty, but my god, it was the weirdest turn on for me coming from him. Anyone else and I'd think I'd have been searching for an excuse to leave early.

But this guy, I could have sat and listened to him talk for hours. He was so intense and got so mad about certain political topics but if you hadn't guessed already, that Latin passion was something wild horses couldn't pull me away from. Oh and another thing, I had expected to be paying for the drinks all night, not trying to be too presumptive, just a dynamic I'd experienced previously since I was a few years older. But this guy was pulling his credit card out left and right and center and some of our drink orders were pretty steep. I had no idea how someone so young could afford such amenities but needless to say, I was impressed. They did however talk like

a machine gun. They jumped from topic to topic, with the overarching theme being essentially, I have a lot of money, don't need to work, and I don't know what to do with my life. Sounds like one of those good problems, right? In anyone else, that kind of attitude would have maybe rubbed me the wrong way, but like I said, I could have listened to that accent all night. At one point during the date, this absolute bear of a man approached my date, whispered something in his ear and my date kind of waved him away. My first thought is that this person was asking if they could buy him a drink and that he'd rightly dismiss them since he was out with me. But there was something else about the way they acted that

made me think they'd met previously. I asked my date if he knows that guy and he says no, but some people aren't very good at lying and my date was one of them. I just smiled, nodded and took the answer at face value. It wouldn't do me any good to start a pointless argument at this stage. And besides, it wasn't long after that that they let slip about something that explains some of their more erratic behavior, and maybe even that weird interaction with the older guy. He told me that he was sorry if it seemed a little tense. It's just that he missed his daddy, who had been in an accidental shooting and was still recovering in the hospital. I told him he didn't have to talk about it and that I was really sorry it had happened,

but he took it upon himself to vent about it to me, and I was more than willing to be the shoulder to cry on, so to speak. But after I noticed a few weird inconsistencies with what they were saying, creepiness and red flags started popping everywhere, and the more he talked, the more it sounded like his family was involved in some kind of organized crime. I thought I might have just been a bit overdramatic and, well, assuming a Latino guy was involved in crime just because he has money? That's some problematic thinking right there, I thought. But it wasn't the incident with his wallet that convinced me he was bad news. A few hours into the date, the tough looking guy approaches him again and he doesn't show a shred of shame that I'd obviously caught him lying.

Another huge red flag right there, but the date was about to end, so again, no point making a scene over it. My date apologizes, tells me he has to leave and promises me that he'll text me before he gets up and leaves. But oh no, he's left his wallet on the table and when I finally notice, I chase after him to give his wallet back. I'm almost caught up to him in the street outside the bar when the tough looking guy tackles me so hard it almost knocks me off my feet. The guy is cursing in Spanish at me, winding up his fist to knock my teeth out and I'm completely terrified. Begging him, please don't hit me, he forgot his wallet. I have, insert the guy's name's wallet. And there wasn't even a hint of an apology from either of them. That guy's card must have had a limit in the thousands but they didn't seem to be bothered that he'd almost lost it, nor that I'd been nice enough to return

it. Again, they really didn't sit right with me but I didn't get any confirmation on this until months later. I told my roommate about the weird date and she was fascinated. Being something of a true crime addict, she was dying to know if the guy I'd been out with was the son of some Mexican cartel kingpin or something. But I told her she could safely rule that out since he was, duh, Argentinian, not Mexican, but that turned out to be the one piece of information she'd need. Turns out his dad was killed over drug-related matters and was apparently quite the rising star in the Rio Negro cocaine trade down there in Argentina. The killers hadn't been caught yet and everything was incredibly sketchy. It was not a professional, but a partner in crime.

Some kind of business arrangement gone very, very wrong, and they were trying to throw the cops off the scent by telling people it was drumroll and accidental shooting. Then, when I saw a picture of the guy who'd been shot, he looked exactly like an older, less moisturized version of my date. It was uncanny. That's when the penny dropped, and I knew where all that wealth came from. And not only that, but disparate clues were all over those articles which pointed out that he might just be the next target and that a huge chunk of their money had gone missing. I can't remember exactly what the article said, but it heavily implied that the dealer's family had gone into hiding somewhere, having probably taken the stolen money with them. And if this was true, they'd most definitely be the target of rival cartel hitmen.

The man who kept bothering us wasn't some interloper looking to steal my date from me. He was a bodyguard, something I hadn't quite figured out at the time of the tackling incident. I know, but hindsight is 20-20, isn't it? And this also meant that there was a slim chance that whoever was looking to kill him might have found him while he was out on our date. Maybe that's why they got out of there so suddenly. They'd been tipped off or something, maybe felt something was off or wrong. I could have been killed in the crossfire. Maybe they'd have thought that I was involved somehow and just killed me too. Obviously, I didn't want to see the guy again, but I did feel like I owed

him an explanation. He had enough going on in his life and I didn't want to give an already damaged person some kind of abandonment complex. But when I went to text, the message wouldn't deliver, and when I called, a recorded message told me the number had been disconnected. To be honest, I think they got him. Maybe only 36 hours after our date. I think I really did narrowly dodge witnessing a murder happen right in front of my eyes. And let me tell you, that's not something I ever want to have to consider ever again. To be continued... of its release, so we're talking like spring of 2010, back when it was actually on Blackberry. God, that must make me sound like an absolute dinosaur, but anyway. One of the first guys I

ended up talking to offered to take me out for something to eat and that kind of worried me. I have terrible eyesight so in some dimly candlelit romantic restaurant, I'd be as blind as a bat. I'm having terrible reactions to cigarette smoke and this is back when people were still permitted to smoke in restaurants here in New York. I was worried that hitting him with that would have had him thinking, well doesn't this guy sound like a barrel of laughs? Not, before he vanished on me. But he was so refreshingly nice about it and offered to take me to this well-lit, health-centric salad bar he knew of, and I'm super excited about our date. The weather was a total washout on the day, but I didn't care. I put on my best outfit and waited

for him to call saying he was outside, but when I got out to his car, he was wearing just khakis and a flannel shirt. I get if he wanted to just chill, but I was kind of offended he didn't put more effort in. It wasn't a red flag or anything, or at least I didn't see it as one, just a little bit disappointing. Although in hindsight, maybe I should have seen it as one. We're driving to the restaurant with some minor small talk as he asks how long I've been online looking and I tell him about a month. Then he tells me he's been online for like two years but that he's never been on a date with anyone. Then I ask him what he does for a living. He replies saying he's retired and independently

wealthy. I mean, good for him, I suppose. But he didn't exactly answer my question, so I follow it by asking what he did for a living, with a laugh like, haha, whatever, just tell me what you do. It's then he tells me that he's a retired Methodist minister. Nothing I was going to judge him for, but let's just say that definitely accounted for some of the behavior that followed. So remember when we'd established that we'd go to this nice airy salad place because of my allergies, etc? Well, apparently that went out the window, because he took me to the darkest, smokiest hotel brasserie you could have imagined,

and it didn't take a genius to work out why. He didn't want to be seen with me, and that did not make for the most romantic atmosphere. As we're waiting for our food, his head is on a swivel, obviously worried he's going to be spotted by someone he knew, and he seemed on edge the whole time, tense and ranty, like he got so worked up about people who didn't use accurate pictures of themselves, and as much as I agreed with him, he made me feel pretty unsafe the way he seemed so aggressive about it. The only thing that reassured me a little is when I asked him if I looked like my picture. He said, sure. But the way he kind of waved the question away I still felt kind of on edge. Like he was obviously deeply closeted way way into his late 30s and no offense to anyone in

that position but leading such a pronounced double life can have a horrible effect on people and I know that because some of my best friends led a similar existence for many, many years. It can make them volatile, cold, and sometimes even violent. So by that point I had already decided I didn't want to see him again. But I also needed to ride back home in that heavy rainstorm, so I was left in the unenviable position of having to be nice to a total effing creep. And for those of you thinking that might have sounded a little judgmental, just wait till you hear what this guy said next. On the ride back, he asked if I wanted to see him again. I lied and said, sure, why not? Just to keep things from being too awkward. He seemed pleased with that answer and said that he really did like me, unlike this, and these are his words, unlike this other fat

kid I was dating and he was gross but I knew he was an easy lay because he was desperate. I then find out that he actually used to be married and had two kids by a woman he said he never really loved to begin with. Do you see your kids often? I remember asking him. No, was all he said. But literally as I thought I couldn't hate the guy any more than I did, he asked me what I do for a living. Bearing in mind I'd asked him that same question on the ride out there, it only occurred to him to return the question like an hour or so later.

So I tell him I work in graphic design and that I make handmade jewelry to make money on the side Now keeping in mind that I've opted to be civil with him so far Even though I found him completely disgusting But on hearing that I make jewelry he says So, jewelry Think that's where Jews get their name, huh? Jewelry? He gives this awful racist dad laugh as if to be like I'm so funny right

but I can't hold my tongue any longer. What's that supposed to mean I ask him. Well you know I mean wait. His tone seemed to change as he asked me the question you're not Jewish are you? I'm not, full disclosure, but I have Jewish friends, so I'm not about to let him start talking like that. So I throw back and what if I am, thinking that might shame him into silence. But that only half worked. He went quiet alright, but it wasn't out of shame. It was pure rage. And suddenly I wasn't feeling so proud of myself. I was seriously worried he was going to do something. I remember all that bitterness that comes with staying closeted for some guys,

how they can channel that discontent into all kinds of messed up things and it was then that I realized that I might have gotten myself into some serious trouble. When I finally asked him like, you're taking me home right? I was only half reassured by him saying, yeah, I'm getting you out of my car. At least he didn't want to take me anywhere and do anything to me. But the scary thing was, he was obviously holding himself back from doing something he might regret. Read as get arrested for. The only worry for me is that he might not be able to hold it until he'd drop me off back home. It was honestly the scariest car ride of my life and at one point I was actually praying that I'd get out of there okay. Thankfully he just pulls up

outside my place and says get the F out of my car. God only knows I was only too happy to oblige him. It did really worry me that he knew where my apartment complex was, but I also took comfort in knowing he probably just wanted nothing to do with me anymore. Plausible deniability or whatever and thankfully I'm still here, so he obviously didn't act on any urges he might have had. And I'm not just saying this because he was like a bigot or whatever, but he was genuinely on the verge of violence on that car ride. I've had some bad dates, but only one where I felt genuinely scared for my safety. So please, reverend, let's not meet again. Sintra I can't speak for the grinder experience in western communities, but I can speak for one particular grinder experience from here in India. India can be quite a progressive country in some ways, and quite an intolerant country in others. For example, we have the Hijra

here, which are like Indian transgender or third gender people who have been accepted for thousands of years. They are even part of the Hindu religion. And Aravannis, as they are sometimes called, take part in a festival in which they marry the Hindu god Aravon and then mourn his death by ritual sacrifice. But like I said, India can be very homophobic too, and although same-gender partners were technically recognized in 2018, same-gender marriages still aren't legal and almost a quarter of the Indian people are strongly against it. So as you can imagine, dating apps can be an absolute blessing when it comes to finding partners, or in my, dating apps can be an absolute blessing when it comes to finding partners. Or in my case, they can be an absolute curse. I matched with one guy,

and he was really, really cute. So immediately I shared a picture of myself asking him if he wanted to meet up. I'm a little bit older than some of the cuter guys in my area, and I fairly rarely get a reply from them. But when this guy actually messaged back, I got so very excited and we quickly arranged for him to visit my apartment. When he tells me he's on his way, he asks to see a few more pictures of me so he can know what he's looking forward to. Of course, I show him and because I'm so very excited to meet him, I don't really think anything of him asking me to see me in my work clothes. He said he liked a man in a shirt and tie and since I worked in an office here in Mumbai, I had plenty of professional and

not so professional shots on hand. His questions continued to get quite personal, asking where I worked, but when I confronted him on it and asked why he seemed to be interrogating me, he replied that it was for his own safety. He'd been with some rough guys in the past and he was worried something might happen to him. I thought that was just the sweetest thing, so after assuring him that my intentions were nothing but good, I answered every question he had of me. About an hour later, he shows up, and he looks even better than his pictures. I can't believe how lucky I am. He looks fantastic, and he seems to really actually like me. We had drinks, chatted about this and that, and after an awkward first kiss, we fell into bed together.

It was honestly one of the most magical nights of my life. I never had much luck finding partners. I'm definitely not the most handsome, desi, gay guy out there. So such a wonderfully romantic evening was just a dream come true for me. When it was over, we cuddled for a while and I was so happy to hear that he wouldn't mind meeting me again sometime. Then he got up, went to the bathroom for a drink of water and began to put his clothes on again. It was quite late at that point so I figured he just needed to leave because of work in the morning or something and just as I'm about to give him

a kiss goodbye, he looks me dead in the eyes and says, 30,000 rupees. I thought he was joking, I really did, and when he held out his hand to me, I laughed a little. But the look on his face was deadly serious. He seemed to get offended when I laughed at what turned out to be a very serious demand. The thing that really got to me though was how rehearsed his routine was. As soon as I showed any sign that I wasn't willing to give him the money, he turned nasty. Started clapping his hands and really shouting. Shouting about how, oh you're not going to pay me for this? We just had it.

Do your neighbors know that you're gay? I think he must have pegged me as a shy half-out gay guy from the get-go. He must have known I lived in a nice place where my neighbors or parents wouldn't have approved of my lifestyle. I begged him to be quiet as he took his phone out and showed me what was obviously in addition to his profile. A little code word we have for male escorts that, well, I won't reveal here for obvious reasons. But I swear to you, it wasn't there when we talked, and to my horror, I was being rather effectively blackmailed. And for 30,000 rupees too, that's about 400 US dollars. A lot for me me and I could be considered to be quite well off here for my white collar job. So much that there's no way I had all that cash on me so

he just took what was in my wallet then demanded I take him to a cash machine. My last line of defense was telling him that I just didn't have the money in my account. But he recognized the lie instantly and raised his voice again, calling me expletives and calling me cheap. At this point, my neighbors are actually looking out of the windows because he's raising his voice on the walkway outside my apartment. I have to beg with him with tears forming my eyes. Please don't show them.

They don't know. They don't know. He smiled such a sick smile after that, knowing that he had me by the balls and all I could do was roll over and let it all happen. We had to go to two different ATMs, his insistence, not mine, to withdraw the full amount. And that's when he basically rubbed salt in the wounds by calling some of his friends on his phone to gloat about how he's got a big one tonight, and I'm not talking about his ling. At the start of the night, I was so excited and at its peak, I thought I'd found true love. But then there I was,

feeling stupid, scared, and utterly humiliated, being robbed blind by a soulless, heartless predator. When we were finished getting the money, he told me to drop him off somewhere and even had the cheek to thank me for a good night. When I drove back home, I actually thought about taking my own life. The feelings were just too much for me and I wasn't sure if I could stand to feel them any longer. But instead, I just got drunk and cried until I fell asleep. Perhaps the worst thing is that my neighbors suspect something now. I know they look at me different, and they're not nearly as friendly as they used to be. I think I might move somewhere else soon, maybe look for a new job too because I really cry for

help inside. I really don't deserve this and I wonder what I did so terrible that it actually happened to me. So please, never share any intimate pictures unless you really trust the person and make sure to trust them before you invite them over to your place. I was 19 and pretty naive because I never did anything before with a guy and trusted people. His Grindr profile was blank and said his age was 26 and he was in average shape. He said he was handsome and his phone glitched when he sent photos. Like a dumb kid, I believed him. We went to get pizza and when I stepped out of my car, this old man was waiting for me. He was definitely not 26 and he was around 300 pounds. Creeped out but might as well enjoy pizza on him, right?

We got to a bit of talking and he kept telling me vulgar things like how he cannot get intimate less than three times a day and how dedicated I had to be to him or else he wouldn't even consider dating me. Eventually he told me his real age is 45 and that he's a dental student. I asked him to take off his baseball cap because I was curious if he had hair or not. When I saw what I can only describe as looking like a small horn sprouting out of the top of his head. He said it's a very large cyst and that he shaves his head to avoid irritation or something. Imagine cartoon characters getting bonked on the head and having the large swollen lump afterwards. That's what I saw, but like, scaly almost. After pizza I acted like I had a decent time and would message him later. I would actually block him the second I get into my car. Since I was parked further away, he offered me to take me to my car via his car. I said sure because I felt like it was

harmless, although very creepy. In his car he asked if he could inspect my teeth since he was a dental student. I said no but he strongly insisted and I was just so scared at that point that I sort of just let him. That's when he took out a small plastic case containing some actual dentistry tools. I swear to god, he puts on a headlight and starts picking at my teeth. I didn't know what was going on, but I sure can tell you that I didn't like it. Once he got those tools out of my mouth, I told him my phone dropped on the side of the seat and I went to get it, but I just ducked out of the car and basically ran to a nearby 7-Eleven. So from now on I make sure the person I'm talking to is real

and at least get to know them a bit before meeting in a public place. I'm sorry. Sometimes I look back on my teenage years and wonder how I made it through in one piece. I was naive, painfully naive, and it got me into certain foolish situations. Some of my friends look back on similar experiences and cringe hard But me, whenever I look back I get this quiver of fear knowing that I could have come to some very serious harm Getting into cars with total strangers Older guys who I didn't know from Adam Any one of them could have been Dahmer or Nilsson Or any other kind of psycho with a taste for murdering gay men.

I think the fact that I'm still here to write this shows how lucky I am. Back in around 2012-2013, all my gay friends were talking about this Grindr app and how it made hooking up with people so much easier. I always felt like we were swimming against the stream, you know. How dating was just much harder for gay guys because the dating pool is so much easier. I always felt like we were swimming against the stream, you know. How dating was just much harder for gay guys because the dating pool is so much smaller. Back in the day, if you weren't down for some leather daddy grinding up against you in a small filthy sweaty gay bar, you were almost guaranteed to be a virgin until your late 20s. But things like Grindr made something tough and terrifying into something you could do with your thumbs while sitting on your couch. Finding a date was almost too easy.

And maybe that was the problem. Being face to face with someone, you get a real sense of who they are, and if you're actually attracted to them. But Grindr let me line up dates with all kinds of guys, and in one case, that was much more of a burden than a boon. And so I organized a date with this guy we'll call Oscar. Oscar was a little older than me and although he didn't have his own place, he did have a van he said he could get some privacy in. He'd said he'd put a mattress in the back for us so we could get intimate together. And honestly, I'd be lying if I said that wasn't kind of appealing. I was shy, but even shy guys have needs too if you catch my drift. He picks me up around the block from my parents' place so that they wouldn't suspect anything,

and I told them that I was staying at my buddy Todd's house over the weekend. I wasn't, but if they called Todd's parents, he could totally cover for me and say I was on my way over or something. Dumb solution, but like I said, I was freshly 18 and dumb as a rock. It didn't occur to me that I should actually just be truthful with them, so that if anything really did go wrong, they'd actually be able to find me or report my last known whereabouts to the cops. Nope, all I cared about was me and I wasn't even experienced enough to keep myself safe. We made some small talk before I asked him where he was taking me and he says, my favorite

spot out in the woods. It's so peaceful and quiet up there, kind of romantic in the right light too. So yeah, obviously I was kind of psyched about such a romantic rendezvous with a guy who actually turned out to be way cuter than his profile picture suggested. No, I don't want to get into too many details about what happened next. Intimate information has always been something I've been kind of shy about so please use your imaginations. Anyways, he's being really gentle at first but the comfier we get the weirder he starts to talk. He starts saying some quite possessive things which was really hot at the time and the feeling

of being owned was something that definitely stayed with me. But out of almost nowhere I feel him slip something around my neck. Instantly, I'm like, no, no, no, this is not okay, because I know how dangerous breath play can be. I move to ask him to please, please take whatever he just put around my neck off. Turns out it was an actual leather belt that he was using as a kind of leash. But as soon as it looks like I'm about to protest, he puts the belt so tight that I can barely talk. I can still draw breath, but it's really difficult, and as we keep going, I get more and more distressed. I move to turn back to ask him

to stop again, and he slaps me, tells me to shut the F up and take it. I couldn't even believe this was the same guy at this point. He went from sweet to evil in the time it took to get that belt around my neck. I've never been so scared in all my life. He kept tugging on the belt and saying things like you belong to me now and if I wanted I could just end you right here. That's how much I own you right now. By the time he was finished, I was in tears. And as much as he tried to reassure me that we were just having fun, I knew he got off on something way darker than just intimacy or control. He got off on the idea that he could have killed me at any moment. And the worst thing, he knew he'd probably get away with it. He knew I had kept this secret from my parents, and he knew they had no idea where I was.

I just pray that younger gay men these days are much more open with their parents, or even just their friends, about where they're going and what they're doing. I know we don't exactly want our parents to be all up in our business, but honestly, our lives could depend on it one day. To be continued... at 7pm EST. If you got a story, be sure to submit them to my subreddit, r slash let's read official, and maybe even hear your story featured on the next video. And if you want to support me even more, grab early access to all future narrations for just $1 a month on Patreon,

and maybe even pick up some Let's Read merch on Spreadshirt. Thanks so much, friends, and I'll see you again soon. or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get it from our tread experts. Toyo's open country family of tires will get you through tough weather in a variety of terrains. Until May 31st, save up to $100 in rebates on select Toyo tires. Find a Toyo tread experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there at treadexperts.ca.